Winky wins clearly, but Sam's stock rises

Ronald "Winky" Wright won a unanimous decision over a determined Sam Soliman at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut on Saturday to firmly establish himself as the top middleweight contender in the world for Jermain Taylor's world championship. But Soliman won over the crowd in defeat, throwing an amazing 1260 punches over 12 rounds according to Compubox's Punchstats. Wright outlanded Soliman 300-174 and his defense contributed to Soliman missing 323 out of 333 jabs thrown. "His style is so crazy," said Wright on HBO afterwards. The official scores were 115-113, 115-112 and 117-110. Wright was coming off a near-shutout win against Felix Trinidad and tonight he successfully dealt with one of the most awkward fighters in the sport.  Soliman leaned back and forth, to the left, to the right and threw a ton of punches but not many landed. For his part, Wright was more aggressive than he has been in the past, digging in with beautiful body shots, as well as being very accurate to the head.  There were no knockdowns but Wright hurt Soliman in round eleven with a straight left forcing Soliman back to the ropes. Wright followed up with an over hand right, and then connected with uppercuts and straight lefts that hurt Soliman some more. He also wobbled Soliman a bit in the last round but Soliman kept coming forward.  Wright wants to challenge world champion Jermain Taylor next, but it appears both men will fight one more time to build up the next showdown for supremacy at 160 pounds.  With the win Wright gets his 50th win and improves 50-3 with 25 KOs while Soliman falls to 31-8 with 12 KOs. source: HBO Championship Boxing