Sunday, March 07, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

WELL-ROUNDED WINKY: Wright's big moment

IBF junior middleweight champ wants Mosley's belts, unified title

By KEVIN IOLE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

IBF junior middleweight champion Winky Wright has gained boxing fame, but doesn't plan to stay in the sport much longer. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

He's got a suite atop Mandalay Bay overlooking the Strip. His rental car is a high-end Mercedes. He's got his golf clubs and bowling ball and knows the quickest route to all of the nearby movie theaters. And, of course, he has worn a path to the craps table.

Winky Wright, clearly, is enjoying his Vegas vacation.

On Saturday, he'll be the focal point of the biggest fight of the year, battling to unify the 154-pound championship for the first time in the division's 29-year history. Wright will risk his IBF junior middleweight belt against Shane Mosley, who holds the WBA and WBC super welterweight titles, at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

It will be the 32-year-old Wright's first time in an event of this magnitude, but he laughs off any insinuation of pressure. Compared to, say, being a U.S. soldier in Iraq, Wright says, fighting Mosley -- a quick-handed man with an Adonis body -- will be great fun.

"Boxing is a great sport and it's a lot of fun and it's how I make my living," said Wright, 46-3 with 25 knockouts. "But I'm not fighting for money. You've heard me call guys out, but you've never once heard me complain about money. All I want, and all I have wanted, is to be able to say I've fought and beat the best.

"Shane is a guy a lot of people say is the best, so that's why I wanted him. I'm taking less (money) to fight him than they offered me before and I turned that one down."

Wright grins devilishly. He had a chance to fight Mosley in 2000 for $1.25 million, but declined. On Saturday, he'll make $750,000 in a far more significant fight. He knows people have a difficult time understanding his logic, but said it's simple.

"When I was offered the fight with Shane before, he had just moved up to welterweight and I would've been considered the much bigger guy," Wright said. "Beating him wouldn't have done me any good, even though he had just beaten (Oscar) De La Hoya. Everyone would have said, `Yeah, so what. He's a little guy. You should have beaten him.' But now, it's totally different.

"(Mosley) has beaten De La Hoya at this weight and he has two belts and everyone is talking about how bad he is. Now, if I beat him, everyone has to give me my respect. Even though the money is different, so are the circumstances. This fight is my chance to prove what I've been saying for so long."

But Wright acts as if the fight is just another bout, no more significant than his last one, a wide decision victory over journeyman Angel Hernandez.

He's eager to talk about bowling -- "My high game is 269, and I could take one of their balls off the rack and go in and average 190, 200, real easy," he says -- and he's quick to chat golf.

He walks through Mandalay Bay largely unnoticed, though a life-sized picture of his face adorns advertisements throughout the casino and video of some of his fights plays on a loop in the lobby. A young man wearing a T-shirt with the logo of a boxing equipment company nearly bumps into Wright as Wright prepares to greet a visitor, but the teen doesn't seem to recognize the world champion.

That's how Wright likes it, too. He's friends with dozens of high-profile athletes and celebrities and, while he likes a lot of what they have, he doesn't like what he sees them go through. He's especially close with baseball stars Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield and shudders to think of having to endure the public scrutiny they do.

"I tell Sheff I don't know how he handles it," Wright said. "Wherever he goes, he's worrying that someone will try to get him for his money or will want to pull something because of who he is. Barry's concerned about that all the time, too. You go out with them, you can't do anything because they're like mobbed. I tell 'em all the time, `I would not want to be ya'll.' I'd love their money, but not their life.

"Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed. All the money in the world won't mean a thing if you can't go out and enjoy it, which they can't. I'd rather be a good person who has some money and can enjoy my life and thank God for my blessings. I'm no celebrity and thank God for that."

Wright doesn't plan to stay in boxing much longer, hoping simply to get shots against De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad and Bernard Hopkins after his fight with Mosley.

He owns a record company and a real estate company. He's seeking government grants to build low-income housing in his hometown of St. Petersburg, Fla.

His mind works overtime, trying to devise new ways to earn income. He's essentially using boxing as a way to raise investment capital.

Whatever notoriety Wright has gained in the sport has helped open doors that he hopes will lead to business success. He's gone about as far as he can -- or wants to go -- in boxing and is turned off by the sport's often questionable mores.

"Boxing is so political," said Wright, who was promoted by Top Rank and Don King Productions, but got nowhere. "If you watch a fight, you'll see a guy give his all, but if he's not a name fighter or a marquee personality, a lot of times, he may not win. That doesn't happen in baseball. A home run is a home run, whether Barry Bonds hit it or a guy just up from the minors.

"It ain't that way in boxing and it's wrong. I love the sport and I love the competition -- ain't nothing like matching my skills, just me and you -- but I don't like all that other stuff."

He rarely watches a fight on TV and says there's almost no chance he will once he's retired. But he made a plug for his fight with Mosley.

This one, he says, will be worth watching.

"Shane is a great guy and a real good fighter, but there's no way he can beat me," Wright said. "I've looked at it every way you can, and I can't figure out how I could lose. He's a big, marquee name because he got a couple of lucky breaks that I didn't get. He got De La Hoya, those kinds of fights, and that puts you out there with the public.

"Well, this is my fight. This is the fight that will let everyone know who I am. I'm not going to mess this up. I promise you that. The boxing world will be a different place on Sunday morning after I beat Shane."