Former undisputed junior middleweight champion Winky Wright (51-6-1, 25 KOs) fought a who's who of top fighters during his career.
Some of those boxers included Fernando Vargas, Shane Mosley, Felix Trinidad, Jermain Taylor, Ike Quartey, Bernard Hopkins, Paul Williams and Peter Quillin.
The last bought in his career, after more than a three year layoff, he lots a ten round decision to Quillin.
But the one boxer who he never faced, was former six division champion Oscar De La Hoya.
The contest was discussed on several occasions, but it never came off and the two sides never engaged in serious negotiations.
Wright was very much on board with the fight, but he believes De La Hoya had other ideas.
During the final years of his career, Wright was promoted by De La Hoya's company, Golden Boy Promotions.
"Well first of all, they never said they would even fight me, they said they thought about it, but it was never a discussion of trying to make that fight happen. But if I had fought De La Hoya I think it would have been a great fight. Oscar is a great competitor, Oscar has got a great offense, a great hook, good jab. We both would have had to see who’s jab was the best and who could oppose there will on the other fighter," Wright told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
"I definitely think I would have a good chance of beating him, at that time I was a big junior middleweight and I was strong and my will to win. Oscar was coming off some losses at that time, so I really don’t think he wanted to do it too much, he just wanted to pick and choose the fighters he fought without really trying to put himself in danger.
So I think if he would have fought me and came in on me, I would have made the fight really tough and I definitely think I would have won the fight. I take nothing away from him, I think he’s a great boxer, I wish I would have had the opportunity to beat him cause he was the only one I didn’t get a chance to fight, that was a great fighter in my era."
2023-10-21 08:27:15
