By Allan Fox: According to fightnews.com, a fight between 40-year-old former IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO junior middleweight champion Ronald “Winky” Wright (51-5-1, 25 KO’s) and unbeaten middleweight contender Peter Quillin (26-0, 20 KO’s) is being discussed for the May 5th undercard on the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Miguel Cotto card at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Fightnews is reporting that there’s a verbal agreement between the two fighters. The fight will likely take place at 160lbs, as it would be asking a bit much of Wright to go above that.
Wright, 40, hasn’t fought in three years since losing by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision to Paul Williams.

It’s unclear why he decided not to take any fights in the past three years, but it could be that nothing came along that was financially appealing during this time. Before Wright’s loss to Pauil Williams in 2009, Wright had been out of the ring for almost two year after losing a 12 round decision to Bernard Hopkins in July 2007.

Wright didn’t want to take just any fight and was looking for another big fight to take. However, none came his way and he ended up losing almost two years of his career sitting and doing nothing. In hindsight, it clearly would have been better if Wright had stayed busy fighting the best possible opponents in order to stay sharp and to keep his name in the minds of boxing fans.

When Wright did come back in 2009, he looked terrible against Williams, nothing like what he had been in 2007. Going from a two year layoff into a fight against a fighter like Williams perhaps wasn’t’ the smartest move you could make, but neither was sitting down and nothing for two years. Now Wright has been sitting for close to three years and is facing a hard hitter in Quillin. It doesn’t look good for Wright.

The good news for Wright is that Quillin, ranked #7 WBA, #15 WBC, isn’t as skilled as Wright’s last two opponents, Williams or Hopkins. Quillin loads up with everything and is pretty much a pot shot fighter without a left hand. Quillin only has right hand power and can’t fight on the inside to save his life. His trainer Freddie Roach hasn’t made any inroads with Quillin’s flaws and it doesn’t look like he ever will judging by Quillin’s last two fights against Jason LeHoullier and Craig McEwan.

Quillin is good enough using his right alone to beat the guys that he’s been put in with, but he’ll struggle if and when he’s ever matched against someone that can fight like Sergio Martinez, Andy Lee, Dmitriy Pirgo and Gennady Golovkin. I see all of those guys soundly beating him, likely by a knockout.

Wright might still be too good for Quillin because if Wright can stay on the outside he could end up jabbing his way to a victory. The only thing Wright will have to avoid is Quillin’s occasional pot right hands. Other than that, Quillin doesn’t jab well, has no left hand and can’t fight on the inside. I think this is a toss-up fight depending on what Wright has left in the tank. A prime Winky Wright would easily beat Quillin by a lopsided 12 round decision winning every round. But a 40-year-old Wright might be deteriorated enough for the flawed Quillin to beat him.