Before Winky Wright defeated Shane Mosley, he was known as a solid fighter no one really wanted to face. Kind of like the Chris Byrd of the jr. middleweights, a guy who is hard to look good against. On Saturday night, he proved this notion true again. After dominating a solid big name fighter in Felix Trinidad, the question arises again; who wants to fight Winky Wright?

     Winky made Felix Trinidad look like a club fighter, and made it look easy. Who in their right mind is in a hurry to get in the ring with this guy? Like one of my fellow BRC writers said, "I've never seen a guy dominate a fighter like Felix Trinidad with a simple basic jab." However, Winky Wright did, and did it for 12 rounds.
 
     It is now obvious why fighters were in no hurry to give Winky Wright a shot at their title. It is nearly impossible to look good against Winky Wright. He has slick boxing skills, a solid jab, and tremendous defense. He had Trinidad eating a steady diet of jabs all night, and was able to come inside and land combos at will on Tito. But, what amazed me more than his offense was his defense. Trinidad did not land one solid good shot to the head, and wasn't even close to doing so. Trinidad was never able to penetrate one punch through Winky's guard. Winky's hands protected his face almost as good as a dog protects its bone. It was like Winky had a brick wall guarding his whole face, and Tito was only able to land an occasional body shot.
 
     Winky dominated Trinidad even easier than the master himself, Bernard Hopkins, did. Granted there were a number of people in the Boxing world who predicted Winky to win this fight, but I don't think that any would have imagined Wright doing it so easily. All of a sudden, Shane Mosley is not looking so bad now. A couple of years ago if any fighter would have beaten Mosley and Trinidad in three consecutive fights in such convincing fashion they would have been given a pre approved pass into the Boxing Hall of Fame.
 
     The good news for Winky is that he has what a lot of fighters want, and therefore should still be able to get some good fights, because otherwise people would probably still be ducking him. After Saturday night, I can see why.

5-13-2005