WINKY TAKES A BIG STEP UP

by Ron Borges

Winky Wright may be the finest defensive fighter in the world but like most people he learned his art the hard way. He got hit to master it.

"When I fought Fernando Vargas I wanted to take it to him and beat him up,'' Wright recalled recently during a break in his preparations for his June 17 showdown with middleweight champion Jermain Taylor on HBO.

"After that fight (which he lost by controversial majority decision back in 1999 when he was not yet recognized for what he would one day become) I figured it would be easier to fight with my hands up high than moving around all day. It lets me get close enough to do what I have to do (safely).''

What he will have to do June 17 against middleweight champion Jermain Taylor is fight with cautious aggression, the same way he did when he exposed the myth of Felix Trinidad and twice dismantled Shane Mosley so easily he had to change his nickname from Sugar to Sweet and Lo. Wright is the unique fighter who works his offense off his defense, a defense his trainer, Dan Birmingham, has compared to Fort Knox "because nobody gets in.'' With arms as long as some basketball players, Wright is able to block body shots with his elbows while his gloves are still protecting his face.

If one watches him jab, one hand is always held high around the side of his face, making it nearly impossible to try and counter his most effective punch.

To aficionados of the sport, Wright is the master matador, his cape work against onrushing bulls freezing them until they are left confused and wide open for retaliation. Unfortunately for Wright, that is not what the majority of boxing fans admire. What most of them like is blood and guts.

Wright has plenty of the latter but spills little of the former, a style that for years retarded his progress for he was a fighter who was difficult to look good against and impossible to make enough money with to justify the risk you were taking of being not only beaten by him but embarassed by him.

Because of that, Wright has fought in eight countries and on three continents, traveling the world like a U.N.ambassador not on a peace-keeping mission. For 5 1/2 years he fought out of France for the Acaries Brothers, the Don King and Bob Arum of Gay Paree. They started him in Luxemborg, where he rode a train for six hours and in the back of a car for another before arriving in a small town with a room so spare it might have been rejected by the U.S. penal system as cruel and unusual punishment. He won anyway.

He won in Luxemborg and in Germany. He won in Monaco and in France. He won in Argentina and England. He won in South Africa too but only for 15 minutes.

It was there that he defended the WBO junior middleweight title he then held against Harry Simon for the biggest payday of his career at that time, $300,000. When the fight was over it was called a draw and Wright returned to the locker room unhappy with the judges but at least with his title intact. Some 15 minutes later, as he was unwrapping his hands, in came a fight official who told him there'd been an arithmetic error. He had in fact lost, they said. For that to have been true it would have required at least a three point change, which is a lot of new math even by boxing's standards. How anyone could make that kind of error was beyond Wright and at that point, so was the idea of continuing to travel the world in pursuit of a sport that seemed unwilling to give him his due.

"Fighting wasn't fun any more,'' Wright recalled of those globe-trotting days. Yet he fought on because that was his trade. He was not making big money nor receiving recognition even for his boxing skills except from the people who didn't want to fight him. It was a trend that would continue - both the criticism and his dogged determination to ignore it - until Mosley decided two years ago to ignore the advice of his promoter and manager and give Winky Wright the opportunity boxing had long denied him.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Mosley was soon history too, having twice been not only beaten by Wright but dominated by him. Trinidad became history as well after losing every round to Wright in a fight so one-sided Birmingham claimed at the time, "I haven't seen a fighter dominate someone else like that since Sugar Ray Robinson.''

That might have been a reach but whatever that night could be compared to it was Winky Wright's moment. With three straight victories over two of the sport's biggest names, it was no longer necessary to trapise the globe to find an opponent or a decent payday. When he announced he was moving up to middleweight to challenge Taylor, the young Arkansas native had few options but to accept the fight. With Hopkins no longer a viable option, Oscar De La Hoya having left the division and Wright eliminating the rest of the men against whom Taylor might make a decent payday, Winky Wright was what he needed to be. He was the last man standing.

At 34, it had not been easy for Wright to reach that point in his career. He had the typically slow start of a kid with no Olympic background and no big name promoter behind him. Although he won consistently he did it without the kind of spectacular power that calls attention to less skilled fighters and to make matters worse he did it with a defensive style that many unknowing fans felt boring and opponents knew would always make them look bad regardless of what the outcome might be.

His only big chance prior to Mosley had come on Dec. 4, 1999, against then junior middleweight champion Fernando Vargas in Las Vegas. In the spotlight for the first time in the U.S., Wright fought well. Too well in fact. So well that when Vargas was awarded a majority decision an outcry went up demanding a rematch. Had Wright been a bigger name that might have happened but he did not and so Vargas managed to slip off to other more lucrative but less difficult challenges, avoiding any mention of Winky Wright until recently.

With his own career now on shaky ground after spectacular losses to Trinidad and De La Hoya it was Vargas who began seeking a chance to fight Wright over the past year, a rematch Wright refused to grant him for the most understandable of reasons.

"When I deserved a rematch he wouldn't give it to me,'' Wright said. "I have nothing against Vargas but why should I help him?''

No reason because Wright has been able to help himself to big victories himself over Mosley and Trinidad, victories whose foundation came from his remarkable defense but which turned offensive because of the quickness of his jab and his refusal to be hit. "I got the total package,'' Wright insists. "I may not be the best at any one thing, but I'm good at a lot of things.''

Chief among them remains a puzzling defense young Jermain Taylor hired trainer Emanuel Steward to help him unlock, dropping his long-time trainer Pat Burns in the process despite being 25-0 with him and the two-time conquorer of Hopkins. That move was made because Taylor's advisors felt he did not improve significantly in his second fight with Hopkins. Heading into a match with arguable the most difficult target to hit in the sport, Taylor's advisors knew educational reinforcements were needed. That is a fact beyond dispute, even by the middleweight champion.

"Winky Wright comes to box,'' Taylor said last week. "He doesn't look to run or hold. He has an awkward style but he shows up to fight every time he comes into the ring. But I'm not worried about his defense. I don't see no problem with his defense. If he wants to play defense, I can defend with him. It'll just be two people not throwing punches.''

That, of course, is the mistake many opponents have made when preparing for Wright. They think he is all about defense, which he is. What they forget is he's not all about the four-corner offense however.

Although most often in a defensive posture, Winky Wright is not trying to stall the ball. He's looking to lure you into deep water, take you into places you don't want to be, then suddenly hitting you from angles you do not understand.

He is a man who can so frustrate an opponent who must go round after round without finding him within striking distance that one feels the pressing need to take chances. Gambling out of irritation in a place where anger and frustration are your enemies, problems quickly arrive via WinkyWright's fists because when an opponent loses himself like that, Wright makes him pay a harsh price, slamming him with a jab that he uses the way a fencer uses his epee.

He cuts them up with it, he keeps them off balance with it, he stops them in their tracks with it. Eventually, he lands combinations behind it as well, combinations that have their heads swimming. It is like being beaten to death with a velvet-covered hammer. Less messy perhaps but no less deadly.

"I think they're underestimating my skills,'' said Wright (50-3, 25 KO) of Taylor's camp. "He says he's got a great jab. A better jab than me. Maybe they're playing a psychological game so I won't throw my jab. Come June 17, we'll see.''

One thing Wright will see is that Taylor is a bigger man than he is. A more natural middleweight. Possessed with a long reach and a snappy jab, Taylor would appear to have the physical tools to make it difficult for Wright to score effectively with his own jab, which sets up everything else he tries to do offensively.

But when you have fought all over the world, against all manner of opponents, and not only survived but triumphed, you have an inner peace about such things. Wright admits the physical differences between himself and Taylor but he concedes nothing to it. Nothing but that it won't make any difference.

"He is bigger,'' Wright said. "So what? We aren't wrestling. My last opponent (Sam Soliman) was bigger. It doesn't matter. I been fighting and beating whoever they put in front of me, no questions asked, for a long time. I take my hat off to him for taking the fight but there was a lot of pressure on him to fight me from HBO and the fans. This is not a fighter that up and picked me.

"I'm a tough fight and people don't want to deal with that. Shane gave me the opportunity because he's a great fighter and he wanted to accept the best challenge. If he hadn't done that I might still be fighting in West Virginia on ESPN "A lot of champions out there wouldn't fight me. Shane stepped up like a true champion. When I won, all the people who doubted me had their doubts answered.''

That is not to say Wright doesn't still have his detractors however. After years on the road fighting for small money and little recognition, he understands his style remains one that opponents would rather avoid if possible. Because of that he knows there is only one way for him to win in Memphis on June 17.

"I got to fight my plan and my plan is to dominate the fight,'' Wright said. "That way I don't have to worry about the judges. I been cheated twice before (Vargas and Soliman) but the fans will see what happens. I know most of the fans will be rooting for Jermain (who hails form Little Rock, Ark., an hour's drive from Memphis) but I'm used to that kind of crowd. You think anybody was cheering for Winky Wright in France or Germany?

"I love a challenge. The fans can be rooting for him but there's only two men in the ring. I been overseas with only four people rooting for me, my cornermen. That don't bother me. I been blessed in my career. It was tough some times but a lot of fighters out there ain't fighting for no money.

Maybe I'm not getting the lion's share of the purse but I'm getting a big purse. I've been blessed.''

Blessed with skills and with the will to survive the long road toward being able to display them on a big stage like the one this weekend at the FedEx Forum in Memphis, a place where he will be June 17 with only one thing on his mind.

"I just want to prove I'm one of the best fighters in the world,'' Winky Wright said even though in his heart he believes he made that case a long time ago.