Winky Wright vs De La Hoya

I might give Winky a 60/40 advantage but I can see it looking more 70/30 on the night. I don't discount Oscar's chances but I think Wright's style is going to look bad on him and he'll just be less effective than Wright. He might flurryfart his way to a decision win, so I wouldn't lay money on it. I suspect it's one on MY card that I'd have for Wright, even though I've scored some of Oscar's controversial ones for him, as I had Trinidad clearly losing to him, for instance.

 

I see Winky as the favorite, the southpaw from Saint Petersburg's great defense and jab (which caused Trinidad a lot of problems and a nightmare night) would have been problems that the Golden Boy wouldn't have been able to solve in my opinion. Oscar would have landed a lot of punches, but many of them would have fallen on Wright's gloves, who instead would have landed plenty of precise shots, clearly winning the fight on points (something near to what we saw in the Oscar-Sturm, in what I think was a clear victory for the German fighter). Obviously DLH would have had his chances, we're talking about a champion, and it would have been a very interesting fight, but I'm clearly going with Wright by decision.

 

Windy was naturally alot bigger than Oscar and I would think would pack on more useful weight come fight night
Wright seemed to struggle more with high pressure fighters who swarmed imo.
I think Oscar would be leading at the halfway stage but have real trouble in the later stages.

P4P I think Oscar is greater but think Wright may be too big on fight night
Tough call. Can't really decide

 

Unpopular opinion but I think Oscar wins

He has big hand speed advantage and at 154 was actually using the right hand under Mayweather

Winky lets too many rounds float in the air

Oscar outworks him and wins a 7-5 disputed decision

 

Yes that jab would be an issue, no doubt, but I think De La Hoya was good enough to compete with that if the fight was at LMW especially in the early going

The fight where Wright's jab looked amazing was when he fought Dodson
Barely used his other hand to throw a punch

 

I'd lean towards Oscar, but Winky is a nightmare style for him, and Oscar is a horrible style for Winky as well. At any other weight other than 154, I think Wright wins. De La Hoya offered him the fight twice; the second time, he offered $6 million, and Wright declined, saying he wanted $10 million. Insane money. Not only for 1999, but also for someone who didn't hold any cards and didn't have any star power compared to Oscar.

It genuinely felt to me like he priced himself out of that one for a reason. He went on to fight Vargas a few months later in 1999 for a fraction of that and lost. I know people dispute that, and it was a close fight, but I think Vargas did enough. It made no sense for Wright not to take the $6 million DLH fight unless he felt like it would've been detrimental in the long run. I think he'd have lost in a close and competitive fight, but I guess we will never know.

I also got the impression Gary Shaw was as stubborn as it gets as a promoter, and would have been happy to take the financial hit, knowing Winky would lose and that he'd have bigger opportunities down the line, but with the main goal of not kowtowing to Arum.

 

Things went differently than you told them. De La Hoya offered Wright $6 million (at least that's what Oscar and Richard Schaefer said) not in 1999 (no one would have offered Wright $6 million in 1999, because Winky was nobody in 1999), but the offer was made in 2005, after Wright defeated (giving a boxing lesson) Felix Trinidad (Winky earned $4 million in that match). But this is Oscar and Schaefer's version, while Wright has repeatedly sought a fight with DLH over the years (like many, obviously, a match with Oscar meant a lot of money) and it seems that DLH never wanted to face Winky. Wright also told Oscar he wanted to fight him, he did it in front of Oscar and millions of viewers, on HBO's microphones in the Wright-Quartey post-fight, and everyone can see this, it happens at minute 56:30 of this video.

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Winky wasn't a nobody in 99
He was very known and respected in the UK.
He made 3 defences that I can recall in the UK of his WBO title and his fight in South Africa where he lost his world title was also screened in the UK
That was all before 99

Certain fighters seemed to be known and appreciated in the UK years before America starts to really notice them, even if like Wright, they are from there.

Another that instantly springs to mind is Sergio Martinez

 

The Harry Simon fight was televised, sure, that was a great match, a very close fight where the verdict could have gone to either fighter (I had Wright ahead, but the verdict could have gone to either), not like the Vargas fight, where Winky had won with a clear 7-5, and I would have considered a draw generous. How you can see seven rounds for Vargas I honestly don't know. I have the same opinion about Trinidad-De La Hoya, how Tito managed to win that fight I really don't know.

Obviously, the "nobody" referred to Wright's $6 million payday in 1999 (in 1999 he was a nobody to get a $6 million purse). I thought it was clear, now I've explained it even more clearly.

 

You didn't need to explain it to me
I didn't dispute what was said other than he wasn't a nobody. I didn't dispute the financial offers or anything else

 

You quoted my post saying it wasn't true that Wright was a nobody in 1999 and I wanted to explain (not to you but to anyone reading the post) that Wright was a nobody in 1999 exclusively to get a $6 million purse (he got $4 million for the Trinidad fight in 2005, after he had twice defeated a star like Shane Mosley), just for that.

 

As said
I haven't disputed his worth or purses