By Dr. Peter Edwards

I can’t think of one person that has more fighters calling him out and later turning him down than Winky Wright. There are many that call on Floyd Mayweather, but the difference is that most of these fighters actually want to fight Mayweather.

Most fighters calling on the name of Winky Wright are not actually looking to fight him. In the last few years, fighters like Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather and Antonio Margarito have all mentioned Wright, but none of them took the necessary steps to seriously pursue the fight.

De La Hoya has mentioned Wright as a possible dance partner on more than one occasion, but tiptoes around the subject of fighting Wright when reporters bring up the possibility of making the fight happen.

In 2005, Floyd Mayweather was barely a welterweight and began campaigning for a fight with Wright, who just made a move to the middleweight division. The fight crashed just as quickly as the minor negotiations to stage the fight began.

Mayweather had a lot of stipulations on the table, including a weigh-in on the day of the fight, and Wright was not allowed to weigh more than 8 pounds above the agreed upon fight weight of 154 pounds.

The stipulations presented by the Mayweather camp were no problem for Wright., but the split of the green pot of gold is what caused everything to fall apart. Wright wanted a 50-50 purse split, because in his opinion the fight was a no-win situation for his career. If he won, critics would say Mayweather was too small. If he lost, his overall career would suffer a massive blow. The ball was in Mayweather’s court to agree to the terms as he had everything to gain and very little to lose.

Mayweather, through his promoter Bob Arum, demanded a 55-45 split of the purse in his favor. At one point, Wright’s promoter Gary Shaw claimed a deal was verbally reached between him and Arum for 50-50 split. Arum later denied ever agreeing to such a deal.

In the opinion of many, Wright’s name is used for marketing purposes. A fighter with name recognition calls out Wright for a future scrap and suddenly there are headlines throughout the world of boxing.

Recently, a similar tactic was used when WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito issued a $4 million dollar offer to Winky Wright to fight him in October.  On paper the fight appears to be a mismatch, but the reasoning behind Margarito calling out Wright could very well have been a ploy to speed up Floyd Mayweather’s final decision with respect to fighting him.

Currently, Mayweather has an offer of $8 million dollars to face Antonio Margarito in November. Mayweather has repeatedly brushed aside the fight with Margarito, but has yet to find a suitable pay-per-view opponent. In an effort to make Mayweather speed of the selection process, Margarito called out Wright, hinting to Mayweather that the front-runner for his next fight could be moving on.

While Team Mayweather says Margarito is on the list of possible November opponents, they also say he is unlikely to secure the fight. The Margarito-Wright swerve did not make Mayweather blink, nor did it start any form of negotiations. The only thing accomplished was the entire stunt backfiring on Margarito.

Initially Wright turned down the $4 million dollar deal with Margarito because he felt insulted that he was being offered half the money that Top Rank was offering Mayweather. A week later, Wright said that he would agree to Top Rank’s offer and countered by offering Margarito $1.5 million to fight him. After everything was said and done, Top Rank head Bob Arum told numerous media outlets that they have no interest in making a fight with Wright.

The only fighters who seriously want to face Wright are those that think they will overpower him. Fighters like Jermain Taylor, Felix Trinidad and Joe Calzaghe. The one fighter that willingly fought Wright on two occasions after calling for the fight was Shane Mosley. Not only did Mosley call for the fight, he had no reason to take it. Mosley already had a deal to fight a returning Felix Trinidad with an estimated $10 million dollars to be earned.

In what turned out to be the biggest gamble of his career, Mosley was dominated by Wright and in the process lost his junior middleweight titles and the big payday with Trinidad.

After Wright dominated Mosley in their first meeting, won the rematch and later dominated Trinidad, the performances became his own worst enemy. Five years ago, fighters would avoid him without mention. In the present, fighters mention his name and then avoid him.