Winky Wright fights Sam Soliman tonight for the No. 1 contender's spot in the IBF. Wright is likely to be the next top-name opponent for middleweight champion Jermain Taylor.

Winky Wright is sick, an illness that for a while threatened to cancel his fight against Sam Soliman tonight. Wright, the world's finest middleweight, is not the only one who is sick, though.

There are a lot of boxing fans who subscribe to a premium cable channel like HBO solely for the boxing who are sick, too.

They're sick of bouts like Fernando Vargas against no-hoper Raymond Joval. They're sick of mismatches like the Nov. 19 offering between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and long over-the-hill Sharmba Mitchell, in which Mitchell failed to win so much as one 10-second segment of any of the six rounds.

And they're sick of non-deserving "contenders" like Soliman getting bouts like the one he has tonight, against Wright on HBO for the No. 1 contender's spot in the IBF.

When middleweight champion Jermain Taylor gave up the IBF belt in October, the organization somehow had Soliman as its top-rated contender. This was just five months after Wright had routed Felix Trinidad by winning each of the 12 rounds in their May fight at the MGM Grand, but that apparently escaped the notice of the IBF.

Soliman's biggest victory was against -- are you ready for this? -- Joval, a 37-year-old Dutchman whose claim to fame, if you can call it that, is a win over Angel Hernandez.

Soliman is a career minor leaguer playing in the World Series.

Ross Greenburg, the president of HBO Sports, has gotten the message loud and clear. He's committed to cleaning up the network's boxing schedule in 2006 and is willing to pay more to get the best bouts on HBO.

His first challenge will be choosing Taylor's first post-Bernard Hopkins opponent. The unbeaten Taylor upset Hopkins in July on a controversial split decision, then repeated it last week with an equally close victory.

The wins, though, left more questions than answers about Taylor.

Taylor said before his second win over Hopkins -- the first half of which, by the way, was so uneventful that it made the dull Oct. 1 Chris Byrd-DaVarryl Williamson heavyweight title match look like a Pier 6 brawl -- that he would be amenable to fighting Wright in his next bout.

"I'd be glad to fight Winky," Taylor said. "I'm the type of fighter, I want to know who's the best."

But after 24 rounds of less-than-enthralling action with Hopkins, Taylor promoter Lou DiBella shudders at the prospect of a similar fight with the crafty Wright.

He wouldn't rule out a fight with Wright next, but is leaning toward fighters like Kassim Ouma, Felix Sturm, Roman Karmazin or even "The Contender" champion Sergio Mora meeting Taylor in Arkansas in April. If Vargas defeats Shane Mosley in their Feb. 25 bout -- unlikely, it says here -- Vargas would top DiBella's wish list for Taylor.

"I promise you, we're not looking to have him fight a stooge," DiBella said.

The problem is there are precious few opponents who would be acceptable to both HBO, which wants a compelling fight, and DiBella, who wants to give Taylor a chance to shine against someone who will stand and fight.

"We don't put soft touches on HBO," Greenburg said in a statement that essentially rules out 98 percent of the middleweight division. "If Jermain fights in a live HBO broadcast from Arkansas, he'll have a competitive opponent."

Greenburg vowed HBO would be "stiff in our opponent approval in the coming years" and said, correctly, "These fighters have got to start thinking long-term."

And so while a short-term loss to Wright in his next fight might hurt, it could serve to boost Taylor in the long term.

There aren't many compelling foes for Taylor these days, as the talent pool in the 154- and 160-pound divisions has begun to dry up.

The risk for Taylor of taking on Wright next is that he's still relatively inexperienced at the world-class level. If Wright toys with him, as he did Trinidad, it could ruin Taylor's marketability. The reward, though, is that a great performance, even in a loss, would make Taylor one of the sport's brightest attractions.

Taylor's team has to decide if the risk of being schooled by Wright is worth the reward of a dramatic victory or a competitive loss.

"Who's to say that after Winky Wright and Jermain Taylor fight live on HBO that a great performance wouldn't catapult one of the two into an eight-figure payday?" Greenburg asked rhetorically.

Greenburg and DiBella, the former HBO boxing czar, will meet Monday to discuss Taylor's future.

The decision they make will not only have a large bearing on whether Taylor ever gets near an eight-figure payday, but whether boxing fans feel the $12 per month for HBO remains worth the money.

Kevin Iole's boxing column is published Saturday. Reach him at 396-4428 or at kiole@reviewjournal.com.