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Winky Wright acquits himself well in uphill struggle against Paul Williams
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Winky Wright obviously isn’t tired of boxing, but he must be getting tired of failing to receive due praise for acquitting himself well in bouts that are weighted against him.
The super-welterweight Wright, the best pure boxer from welterweight up since Pernell Whitaker but now 37 years old, was up at middleweight Saturday on HBO, fighting the freakish Paul Williams, who was 12 years younger, nearly four inches taller and, most important, faster than the somewhat rusty veteran. Williams won a lopsided unanimous decision in their excellent battle of left-handers, throwing and landing twice as many punches as Wright.
Nobody his own size has been better than Wright was around the time of his two victories over Shane Mosley and his 2005 thrashing of Felix Trinidad. Therefore, few his size wanted to fight him despite his low knockout percentage, and even now he can’t get fights unless they’re against elite fighters who are larger than he is.
Williams is one of those. He’s still looks like a helicopter at 160, but that attribute served him better as a welterweight; he doesn’t seem to have carried his power up to middleweight. Oddly, that made Wright the puncher and Williams the boxer Saturday, and Wright made it interesting for a while by punching more accurately than the more-active youngster.
Wright landed right hooks and some good follow-up lefts as the aggressor the first half of the fight. I gave him the first, third and sixth rounds. But it was all Williams the second half of the fight as Wright couldn’t match his speed and energy the way he might have four or five years ago.
It was three years ago that Wright moved up to middleweight to take on unbeaten Jermain Taylor, who figured to be too big and strong for Winky. But they fought to a draw that was a great injustice to the left-hander’s surprisingly effective performance.
He beat Ike Quartey later in 2006 but in 2007 lost to Bernard Hopkins, who is even larger than Williams and Taylor, and then he suffered a 22-month layoff before getting this shot at Williams.
Despite his emphatic defeat Saturday, Wright looked like someone who could give someone his own size some trouble. Before he calls it a career, I’d love to see Wright against Alfredo Angulo or James Kirkland at 154. That’s where the action is, and Wright deserves more of it.
