Even Now, Wright Still Is Fighting for Respect

The boxing champ moved through the Mandalay Bay health club unnoticed. All eyes were on the big guy pounding the treadmill. Eventually, even the boxing champ went up to the big guy on the treadmill, and the champ said hello to Charles Barkley.

Later on that September day, the champ sat quietly on a stool while his manager, James Prince, laid a verbal smack-down on the challenger, prompting an animated response from the normally reserved Shane Mosley in the middle of a news conference.

And through it all, from the health club to the stage and all points between, Winky Wright just smiled.

It seems as though Wright is never the star attraction in the room, never the center of attention, never the first name in the headline.

Even now, as the Saturday night rematch of a March fight that Wright won so convincingly draws near, the attention is on Mosley’s attempt to prove he isn’t finished rather than Wright’s chance to really get started.

“I know,” Wright said. “That’s cool. I ain’t even worried about that. I know I’ve just got to go out here and fight his fight. Shane this, Shane that....I’m not going to worry about it.”

What will be the effect of Mosley’s dropping his father, Jack, to train with Joe Goossen? That’s the main question leading up to the fight at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

Mosley and Goossen say they’re trying to get back to Mosley’s old style of fighting -- which makes you wonder why there was a need for a new trainer.

Well, how about this: Will any of this even matter against Wright?

Some guys just have the edge, as Vernon Forrest did in both fights against Mosley.

Wright looked more adept at 154 pounds than Mosley did in their junior-middleweight title match. He won on all three cards, 117-111, 117-111 and 116-112, to add Mosley’s World Boxing Assn. and World Boxing Council belts to his International Boxing Federation title.

“Wink’s just a little bit better,” said Dan Birmingham, Wright’s trainer.

That’s about as bold as he’ll get. They’re confident, but aside from Prince there isn’t a lot of smack talk coming from Wright’s camp. Birmingham says he respects his counterpart, Goossen, and respects Jack Mosley as well.

Wright says he respects Mosley. Perhaps “appreciates” would be the better word.

Wright, who turns 33 this month, was trapped in boxing’s never-world for years. He was a southpaw too good for the top boxers to risk facing, but not a big enough name to draw a large purse. So he went wherever he could find work, boxing in Luxembourg, France, Germany, England, Argentina and South Africa.

“I’ve fought all over the globe,” Wright said. “Sometimes, it seemed like I would never get to where I am now. I know I’ve got the skills. I’ve got the talent. I just got to get the breaks.”

He caught one when Mosley agreed to fight him in March, stepping into the ring after Oscar De La Hoya and Felix “Tito” Trinidad wouldn’t.

“I’m most grateful,” Wright said. “Shane knows it. I told him. I told anybody. A lot of those guys wouldn’t have done it. He stepped up like a true champion.

“It didn’t work out for him, but he did what they wouldn’t do.”

So when Mosley exercised his rematch clause, Wright felt obliged to repay -- contractually and morally.

“Believe me, I wanted to [head to greener rings],” Wright said. “Don’t sit here and think I didn’t want to. You’ve got to be a fair man. If somebody gives you an opportunity, you’ve got to give them the same.”

It already cost him one title. The IBF stripped him of its belt because he wouldn’t face mandatory challenger Kassim Ouma. For Wright, it’s not about belts so much as it is about big opportunities -- and big bucks.

“I definitely want Tito next,” Wright said. “There’s no doubt about that.”

Maybe then people will start to learn a little bit about Wright. If he attracted any attention in the past it was only because of his nickname, given to infant Ronald Wright by his grandmother because she thought it would be good companion to his uncle’s nickname “Winny.”

For everyone who slept on the first 13 years of Wright’s career, “They’ve missed a real skilled and talented fighter,” Birmingham said. “Not only that, he’s a likable champion. He’s not a guy that you want to see get beat. He’s a guy that you want to see win.”

One reason is because of his loyalty. In a business of constant rotation, where trainers, managers and promoters come and go, Wright has been with Birmingham since he started boxing at age 15.

“Wink and I, really, we’ve grown together in this business,” Birmingham said. “He has confidence in me and I have confidence in him.”

They’re confident that they can beat Mosley again. And maybe, just maybe, the headline would be “Wright wins” instead of “Mosley loses.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.