Ringside LA With Johnny Ortiz; Shane and Winky: "The Final Bell"

By Johnny Ortiz

This Saturday night, November 20th, “HBO Presents” will bring together two of the nicest, classiest young men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing during my time in boxing. “Sugar” Shane Mosley and Ronald “Winky” Wright are everything fighters should be. They are polite, intelligent, extremely humble, disciplined fighters and both profess a love of the Lord. These qualities have been rewarded with world championships.

Polite and humble will fly out the window when these two brave warriors confront one another in the ring come Saturday night. Shane acknowledges he fought a lackluster fight against Winky in their fight last March 13th, as a 4-1 favorite, he lost both his WBC/WBA Jr. Middleweight titles. Shane was completely outclassed as Winky overwhelmed him throughout the fight winning at least nine of the twelve rounds fought.

Shane has become very vocal in saying that Winky will see a totally different Shane Mosley when the bell rings. A few things he has been quoted as saying: “I want to win the fight and get my titles back and get back atop the pound for pound ratings, I know I can beat Winky Wright, there are a lot of great fighters who have lost and come back and won. Sugar Ray Robinson and Ali, you can go down the list.” In naming Sugar Ray and Muhammad Ali, Shane forgot to mention that they started losing when their days of greatness were far behind them.

I truly believe that Shane took Winky lightly; he has to be given credit for facing Wright when other name champions chose to avoid the clever southpaw titleholder. I believe with his new trainer Joe Goossen, Shane will be much sharper than in his previous fight with Winky. With his father Jack as the only trainer he has had since he was a boy, Shane started to revaluate his sagging career when he realized he was starting to go backwards as a competitive champion. He felt he had learned all he could with his father Jack, sometimes a new trainer, especially someone the caliber of Joe Goossen – who is fast becoming known as “A maker of Champions” – and who has been known to take a fighter to another level such as in the case of both Joel Casamayor and Diego Corrales, can make a huge difference. Knowing Joe, he can teach Shane new moves and strategy that perhaps Winky has not seen.  Joe intends to bring Shane back to what he was doing when he was doing his best work.

After losing his welterweight crown to Vernon Forrest and then losing the rematch, Sugar Shane opted to test the Jr. Middleweight waters by engaging former champion Raul Marquez. Although the fight was ruled a no-contest in the third round when the ugly cuts above Marquez’ eyes were ruled accidental butts, the fight was being fought pretty even. If not for the cuts, the fight would have been interesting, I thought that Raul was coming on and his size might have been favorable to him had the fight gone longer.

Next up in his quest for a Jr. Middleweight title was the Golden Boy, here I would like to say that I thought Shane beat Oscar in their first fight as welterweights. I thought the fight was close, but because Shane won the last round convincingly, he deserved the win. Oscar was gracious enough to admit he lost, he did not take Shane that serious and it cost him. That was the first fight…Oscar, without a shadow of a doubt, won their second fight handily. The decision was unjustly given to Shane Mosley.

The fight marked Shane’s second fight as a Jr. Middleweight. In his third fight in the new division, Shane put up both the WBA/WBC titles he won from Oscar, the new opponent?…Winky Wright, the reigning IBF and former WBO Jr. Middleweight champion. All three belts were on the line, the guy no one wanted to fight was not only fighting for three belts, he was fighting for boxing recognition. Shane Mosley gave Winky the opportunity to show his stuff. And show his stuff he did.

I go back a long way with “Sugar” Shane Mosley. I believe I was the first one to have Shane in studio when I did my boxing show at KMAX in Pasadena. No one outside of boxing knew who the young dynamo was. I found him to be a very refreshing breath of fresh air on the boxing scene. He was very modest and like I said, extremely polite. I was thoroughly impressed with the handsome lightweight with the infectious smile. I followed his career, went to his sparring sessions, it was during these sessions that I started to tell everyone that the young man could not miss being a champion. He never let me down.  Even when he made it big, he never turned me down whenever I asked him to appear on my shows.

Sugar Shane Mosley was a great lightweight and welterweight champion, It didn’t feel right when he moved up to Jr. Middleweight. In the lighter weights, he was a terrific puncher, I did not believe after watching his fights with Marquez and Oscar, that he carried his punch up with him. It was the big reason I picked the guy who has fought the majority of his career as a Jr. Middleweight. Winky Wright is a big, Jr. middleweight, strong and very resourceful. Even though he was a 4-1 underdog, and remembering his fight with Fernando Vargas, I just didn’t feel Shane could handle his size. The first fight proved me right; nothing has changed for me in their rematch. Think about it, who can you see fighting Bernard Hopkins or Tito Trinidad? I can easily see Winky, because of his size, fighting either one and giving a great account of himself, now can you imagine Shane at 5 ft. 9 fighting these even bigger guys at 160? If size meant nothing, every fighter would try fighting for the most prestigious title in boxing…Heavyweight.

I came to know Winky when he appeared with me on four different occasions on my radio show. It’s strange, but there were a lot of similarities between he and Shane. They were both so very personable…they mirrored one another.

Shane will be better prepared this time around, having already fought Winky, he knows what he has to do if he is to win. Joe Goossen will have him primed and ready. Winky on the other hand, has long fought for fistic recognition, he has it now and he enjoys it, he wants more…it has been a long time in coming. Winky isn’t about to give it up easily. He knows the big money fights with Bernard, Felix and possibly Oscar await him.

Shane has a lot to prove, Winky, knowing Sugar has reveled in the limelight for quite a while, believes it is his time to shine. It is going to be a great fight; Winky and Shane are both champions…Champions die hard!

Last Saturday night’s heavyweight extravaganza had its moments. Don King aims to please!  Breaking it down, I thought Kali Meehan would have done a lot better considering the fact I thought he beat WBO champion Lamon Brewster. It just goes to show you what kind of champion Brewster must be.
I can no longer go to bat for Evander Holyfield, if he can’t beat Larry Donald, what is he going to do with the fighters who are so much better than Larry “The Legend.” I really didn’t think he could beat Donald, but I was willing to give him a last chance. Evander has no excuses; the once magnificent champion has to call it a night. The wonderful fighting machine that was “The Real Deal” is no more. Evander doesn’t need to fight; he is rich beyond his dreams. Someone close to him has to explain that all the luxuries he possesses are nothing if you lose the mentality to enjoy them. I will fight for any man’s right to work, just not in this line of work. May God bless and protect him and may He show him the Light.
We will never again see the like of Evander Holyfield. He was a true Warrior in every sense of the word. Thanks for all the many, many thrills…You were truly one of a kind.

Chris Byrd dodged another bullet. I really thought Jameel McCline could beat the Byrd Man, winning the first part of the fight; he started to run out of gas in the late rounds. Jameel was in the fight all the way; some thought he barely won it. I’m from the old school that once upon a time taught that you had to take it from the champion. With all the bad decisions we have been subjected to, the old theory seems to be a thing of the past.

John “The Quiet Man” Ruiz was in a brawl. Andrew Golota came to fight. I gave the “South Pole” the first knockdown in the second round, but there was no way he should have been credited for the second one. Not only was Johnny pushed down; he was whacked behind the head when he was kneeling on the canvas. Andrew should have had a point deducted like the ref did to Johnny.

It wasn’t a very pretty fight, but it held our attention. I went to my actor friend Rick Paap’s home for the fight. He had about twelve friends over, we all had a good time, we did a lot of laughing, each fight was entirely different than the next. Johnny Ruiz has a whole different way of fighting, Golota is a brute of a fighter, Johnny met his match as far as roughhouse tactics are concerned.

We all thought that Ruiz won the fight; I would hate to see a rematch. It should be interesting what Don King will put together next. One thing can be said for Don, his fight cards are either great or they are amusing.

I’ll be writing about Barrera-Morales next week. Their past two fights were electric. There is no reason the third one will be any different.

UNTIL THE NEXT ROUND…PEACE AND GOD BLESS!