At the age of 37, Ronald ‘Winky’ Wright is an 18-year pro. A two-time world champion at 154 pounds, he held the WBO world title from May, 1996, to August, 1998. He won the IBF world title in October, 2001, and made six successful title defenses, including two against three division world champion Sugar Shane Mosley.
 
With his first victory over Mosley in March of 2004, Wright became the division's first undisputed world champion in 29 years and the first-ever to hold all three major world titles.
 
Not content with such accomplishments, Wright moved up to the middleweight division in May of 2005 and shut out future hall of famer Felix Trinidad over 12 rounds.  Two fights later, Wright challenged for Jermain Taylor’s undisputed championship but had to settle for a 12 round draw in a bout most observers believed that he won.
 
Regardless, Wright is now a consensus member of the elite "Pound-for-Pound” list as one of the top fighters in the world today.

He said, "I'm the type of fighter that wants to fight for the people. I just want to fight, and when it's over, people will say that he fought and beat the best and should be considered one of the best."
 
Winky was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and at the age of 16 moved with his family to St. Petersburg, Florida. He said, "I moved to Florida and I really didn't know too many people, there wasn't much to do. I always wanted to box, but I was playing other sports. I was good at baseball and basketball."


Shortly after moving to Florida, he went to the local boxing gym to stay busy. He reportedly had 69 amateur fights, going an impressive 65-4.
 
"I used to love watching Pernell Whitaker and Sugar Ray Leonard,” said Winky, whose nickname was given to him by his mother when he was 18 months old. “That's the style I loved. I wanted to be a real slick boxer with skills that can move around and stay in there and make you miss with great defense. I idolized that. That's why I worked on my defense so much."
 
Wright went on to win the 1990 Olympic Festival Championship, which included a win against Stevie Johnston, the 1989 National PAL Championship, and the 1988 and 1989 Sunshine State Golden Gloves. He won five of the six international competitions in which he competed.
 
"I was with Mosley and De La Hoya in the amateurs. They weren't all that back then, just Shane and Oscar, and I knew I was just as good as them. I knew I could make it as a pro fighter, because I was right with them and other guys who had been fighting since they were like, five, and I had only been boxing for a year and a half."

Two years after turning pro in 1990 with a win over Anthony Salerno, Winky signed a contract with French promoters and 20 of his fights were on foreign soil - eight different countries on four different continents - earning him the moniker "International Man of Misery (to his opponents!)"
 
"The first obstacle for me was just getting out of Florida after I turned pro. Nobody knew me, and there was no money there. That's why my management took me over to Europe to fight, but then that became an obstacle in itself because it seemed like was going to be stuck fighting there if I wanted to make any money. When I fought in Europe, I was always in the other guy's backyard. I had to win big or I wasn't going to win at all. It let me know that despite the crowd, despite where I am, man to man, I can beat anyone."

In addition to Sugar Shane Mosley, Felix Trinidad, and Jermain Taylor, Winky has fought former world champions Bronco McKart three times, Keith Mullings, Fernando Vargas, Harry Simon and Julio Cesar Vazquez, and in his last fight, on December 2, 2006, he convincingly decisioned former world champion Ike Quartey, setting up a battle for the ages against middleweight legend Bernard Hopkins on July 21, 2007. And though he would lose a hard fought 12 round decision to the future Hall of Famer and a subsequent bout on April 11, 2009 against two-division champ Paul “The Punisher” Williams, you can’t keep a good man down.