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12/11/2005 Archived Entry: "Wright Cops Tough 12-round Win From Soliman"
Wright Cops Tough 12-round Win From Soliman
By Mike DeLisa at ringside
Uncasville, CT -- A near-capacity crowd surged to the Mohegan Sun to see Winky Wright in his middleweight title eliminator against Sam Soliman. After Jermain Taylor’s title defense against “Bore-nod” Hopkins, both the fans and HBO were looking for an action fight.
Believe it or not, they got it.
Wright won a tough 12-round unanimous decision over Sam Soliman, thus setting up a middleweight challenge against the Taylor, the young champion.
In the very first round, Soliman perhaps aware that Wright had just gotten over a bad cold, looked to hammer Winky with body shots. He landed the same combination at least ten times in the first – a left jab, right hand, followed by left hook to the body or head. The hook, surprisingly, got past Wright’s crablike defense several times. Soliman proved one thing with his hyper-kinetic attack in the first round – he is feather-fisted.
That first round set the pattern for the first seven rounds: Soliman used a modified juke and shoeshine while Wright looked to place more accurate punches. But Soliman’s awkward style was posing problems for Wright. Indeed, Soliman’s sheer number of punches meant that Wright would have to up his own punch output to make sure he did enough to win each round.
The high volume of punches took its toll on both fighters, and going into the last third of the bout, each began to take more punishment as their defenses weakened.
The ninth opened with the fighters clashing heads and Soliman being warned by the referee, Dick Flaherty. The round saw Wright landing some of his best punches of the fight – a straight left at the one-minute mark snapped Soliman to attention; a minute later a right hurt Soliman again. Clearly, Wright was the stronger puncher.
In the tenth, the worst thing that could happen for Wright occurred – he staggered Soliman with a straight left, driving him back to the ropes. Over the next 15 seconds or so, Wright tried to put over the kayo punch, staggering Soliman twice more.
And then Wright hit the wall. Obviously exhausted, he stopped punching almost completely over the final 30 seconds. Indeed, Soliman won the next round on the cards of all three judges as Wright did little but conserve energy. Even with that, the best punch of the round was a straight left by Wright forty-five seconds before the bell.
The twelfth was an excellent action round. Both fighters were now exhausted, and defense was at a minimum. Wright controlled most of the round and won it on two of the three cards.
After the fight Wright said the only thing that makes sense for him – and the middleweight division: “I want Jermain Taylor as soon as possible.”
Leading off the card were two lugubrious heavyweight journeymen, Sherman 'The Tank" Williams and Willie Perryman in a scheduled six rounder. At 274 ¾ pounds, the gelatinous Perryman tried to cadge extra points for style by shaking his ass and attempting a Joe-Walcott-like walkaway punch. The experienced Williams would have none of it and kept up his offense throughout the fight. The only flaw was that the tank’s offense consisted of a jab that fell six inches short of Perryman followed by a slapping right hand to the body. In the last two rounds, the Tank did land a couple of overhand rights and garnered a unanimous decision win along with WBC CABOFE (Caribbean Boxing Federation) Heavyweight Title.
Carlos DeLeon, Jr. – who is managed by Winky Wright – went up against Ted Muller, one of those fighters whose record shows multiple fights against perpetual losers such as Reggie Strickland and Donnie Penelton. Nevertheless, DeLeon had his hands full with Muller, but his youth and speed carried him to a unanimous decision win over six rounds.
Hartford Heavyweight Tony Grano made his second start and seemed to have half of Hartford in the crowd supporting him. He kept tossing hard punches at Tim Gulley until Gulley collapsed in a heap near his own corner, where he took the ten-count.
The CBZ's very own JD Vena did a superlative job as ring announcer for the undercard. Buffer, watch your tail!
