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Ronald Winky Wright Boxing Autograph
A Colour 8x10 Action Autograph boxing champion
Ronald Winky Wright who recently defeated the great Felix
Trinidad. This autograph comes with a photo of Winky signing
so you can be rest assured you are buying a genuine autograph.
Winky Wright
£45.00
On July 30, 1992, Ronald Wright, an undefeated junior middleweight
out of St. Petersburg, Florida, knocked out Carlos Santana
in the second round of a scheduled eight-rounder in Tampa,
Florida. For that, his sixteenth victory, he earned $800,
which was $200 short of his largest purse. The ring announcer
called him Winky Wright.
Five months and three days later, Wright knocked out Darryl
Lattimore in one round in Differdange, Luxembourg. Little
changed. Wright was still undefeated and underpaid. Sure,
the language was different. The pay was in francs, but they
still only added up to a couple of thousand dollars. And,
the ring announcer called him Roland, a first name that
would stick for the all-world junior middleweight champion's
international period, a 5 1/2 year span of 20 fights in
seven countries and three continents.
The bridge from Tampa to Europe for Wright was erected
by Dan Birmingham. After moving to Florida in 1977 to operate
a construction business, Birmingham opened his now famous
gym in St. Petersburg, that has also produced Jeff Lacy,
the IBF super middleweight champion. Wright walked into
Birmingham's gym when he was 16, and he's never left.
After Wright had nocked out Santana for his 16th victory,
Birmingham called Don King. He called Bob Arum. He called
Lou Duva. He called every major player he could think of.
He called all of them twice, some of them three and four
times. Nobody called him back. Then he got lucky.
He called Art Mayorga who said he knew some people in France
and would he and Winky consider talking with them. A few
weeks later, Wright and Birmingham were on a plane to France
to meet with the Acaries brothers. A deal was struck. For
his European debut, Wright would exchange the warm climate
of Florida for the cold wintery season of Luxembourg.
The first trip was a bitterly frigid nightmare. Birmingham
and Wright flew to France, then rode a hard-benched train
for six hours to Luxembourg. From there, it was another
hour by car through the mountains in a snow storm to reach
their lodgings in Differdange. Their rooms were inexpensive
and spartan. That's where they spent Christmas and New Year's
Eve. A few days before the Lattimore fight, Wright came
down with the flu.
The late Arye Fain, who had signed on as Wright's agent,
suggested a remembered remedy of honey and onions. "You
take a whole cup of honey and a whole onion and you leave
the onion in the hney for a whole day," said Birmingham.
"An hour before the fight, you remove the onion and
drink all the honey. I'll tell you, it really works. It
only lasts for an hour or an hour and a half, but while
it is working, it dries up and makes you feel great."
Wright dropped Lattimore three times, stopped him in the
first round. It was better than onions and honey.
Still fighting six and eight-rounders, Wright went on a
tear, ripping off eight straight victories in France, Germany
and a sporting club in Monte Carlo, with a brief stop in
Punta Gorda, Florida. He was undefeated in 25 fights. His
highest purse had been $5,000. There still were no calls
from King, Arum or Duva. Looking back, Wright has to laugh.
"I was fighting in places I had never heard of, that
I could not even pronounce."
Then the Acaries brothers offered him $50,000 to fight
WBA super welterweight champion, Julio Cesar Vasquez in
August 1994, in another place Wright could not pronounce,
Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France. The undefeated Wright had yet
to fight a main event, had not gone more than eight rounds,
and that far only twice. Vasquez was 50-1 and had fought
just five less championship rounds than Wright had fought
in his whole career. "Where do we sign?" asked
Wright.
"In France, they do not have screens for the windows,"
said Birmingham. "It was hot and the mosquitoes feasted
on Winky. The food was bad, the training facility was terrible.
I kept wondering what else could go wrong."
Vasquez knocked Winky down in the second, seventh, ninth
and twice in the last round."The first three were slips,"
said Birmingham. "Winky was wearing new shoes and he
was slipping all over the place." The first knockdown
in the last round was legitimate," said Wright. "He
caught me good. The last knockdown was a push; I was so
tired my daughter could have pushed me down." Vasquez
won by just three points on one card, by four one one, and
by five on the third.
Undaunted, Wright went back into some of boxing's more
unheralded trencvhes. All were victories, raising Wright's
record to 34-1.
His 35th fight, against Andrew Council in Norfolk in March
1996, was on the USA Network Tuesday Night Fight series.
Six months earlier, Council had gained prominence with a
decisive victory over former WBC welterweight champion,
Buddy McGirt. That was McGirt. This was Wright. Council
had no chance. Wright barely broke a sweat as he swept all
three cards in his second defense of the NABF super welterweight
title. (His first two North American Boxing Federation championships
happened in France. He took the title from Tony Marshall
in February 1995 in Beziers, and he defended it against
Anthony Ivory three months later in Levallois.)
The door that Wright had been banging on for so long, opened
slightly for him after the Council fight. April 1996 found
him in Monroe, Michigan, the hometown of newly crowned WBO
junior middleweight champion, Bronco McKart, where he picked
up $50,000 and McKart's title with a split decision in an
ESPN Friday Night telecast. "Well, at least I could
pronounce Monroe," Wright joked.
King, Arum and Duva still failed to return calls. The Acaries
brothers switched Wright's base of operations to England,
where he earned a small but welcomed fortune defending his
WBO title against Ensley Bingham, Steve Foster, and Adrian
Dodson. For the three fights, he received approxmately $300,000,
which was about what most American champions were taking
down as expense money.
With his contract with the Acaries running out, Wright
agreed to defend his title against South African, Harry
Simon for $300,000 in Hammanskraal, South Africa in August
1998.
"Do they have mosquitoes in South Africa?" Wright
asked Birmingham.
"They have screens," responded the trainer.
"How do you pronounce this place?" asked Wright.
"South Africa," said the trainer.
They both laughed.
Simon, a Nambian by birth, was 16 and 0. Wright was only
Simon's second 10-round (plus) bout. In his first, he knocked
out Kasi Kaihau in Sheffield, England.
When it was over, the three WBO judges decided that it
was a majority draw, which mean that Wright had retained
his title. A few minutes later, while Wright was unwrapping
his hands in his dressing room, an official came in to tell
him there had been an error in the scoring. He had lost
by a majority decision. Boom! Then they released the new
scoring. No one explained how there had to be at least a
three-point swing in one of the judge's scoring to change
the decision.
Wright's contract with the Acaries expired. Wright returned
home to St. Petersburg. "We were not unhappy with the
Acaries," Birmingham said. "Far from it. They
did everything they said they would do and more. Winky was
just tired of all the travel. They understood and wished
us well. In fact, I speak with them even today."
Once resettled, Wright began Phase Three of his career,
"Winky Does the United States." He opened by knocking
out Derrick Graham in three in Miami in March 1999. In December
of that year, he went toe to toe with "Ferocious"
Fernando Vargas for the IBF junior middleweight title, only
to be saddled with another controversial loss by majority
decision. One judge scored it a draw, the other two leaned
to Vargas, though the media and fans at ringside thought
Winky had won.
"People keep waiting for me to go away. It ain't gonna
happen", the undaunted Wright said. He then scored
his second decision over McKart for the NABF and USBA titles.
Three months later, he successfully defended his USBA title,
this time against former world champion, Keith Mullings.
Felix Trinidad's move up to middleweight left an opening
at the top of the IBF junior middleweight division. Wright
stepped in and filled the void in October 2001 by scoring
a unanimous decision over highly regarded, Robert Frazier.
In his first defense, Wright stopped Jason Papillion in
the 5th round and he then turned to mandatory challenger,
Bronco McKart for a second rematch, this one for the championship
in September 2002. After referee, Michael Fischer had penalized
McKart five points for low blows, he was disqualified in
the 8th round.
After all the years of fighting in places like Lincoln
City, Nebraska and Beziers, France, the lights of Las Vegas
finally blinked welcome to Winky Wright. In his Las Vegas
debut, he was a little tight in scoring a decision over
Juan Carlos Candelo in March 2003.
His fight against Angel Hernandez in Vegas eight months
later, was a blowout: 119-109, 118-110, 117-111, in favour
of Wright.
Then to Wright's astonishment and delight, up stepped Shane
Mosley who owned two victories over Oscar De La Hoya, but
was having trouble nailing down a big money fight. With
a $10 million dollar fight with Trinidad in the wings, Mosley
offered a junior middleweight unification fight to Wright.
Mosley did not want another fight with De La Hoya.
Using a jab honed in far away places, Wright stayed on
top of the bemused champion all night, never allowing him
to use his speed. Mosley rallied in a furious final three-minute
burst, but it was too little, too late against a guy who
had found the brass ring and was not going to let go. Winning
on all three scorecards, Wright became the division's first
undisputed champion in 29 years, and the first man to ever
hold all three major belts simultaneously.
"I've chased the big guys my whole career. Shane is
the only one who would step up. We will do this again,"
Wright said. "Just show me the money." They showed
him $1.6 million and he said "yes". They did it
again in November 2004. It was a better fight, with Mosley
spurred by the memory of his first loss. As in many of the
really good fights, the last round, one that truly ebbed
and flowed, decided it. One judge called it a draw and two
others scored it for Wright.
Later that night, an exhausted Winky Wright said, "If
it wasn't for Shane, I'd still be fighting on ESPN, probably
in West Virginia, somewhere."
