Winky Wright and Dan Birmingham Discuss Tito Trinidad

Winky Wright and his trainer Dan Birmingham discuss Saturday’s middleweight fight with Felix “Tito” Trinidad. This is what they had to say.

Wright: “Tito may be a stronger fighter than me, but I am a smarter fighter than Tito. He is one-dimensional. I have a lot of different weapons and styles and can and will adapt to the situation. I am not worried about Tito because he is very limited. He needs to worry about my jab, and how I will out-think him. He cannot fight smart fighters. Look what happened when he fought Hopkins. Tito may be stronger, but I have better skills.

Wright: “The only worry I have about this fight is that the loss will send Tito back into retirement and I lose the big payday I have been promised for the rematch. Please Tito, after the loss, UNA MAS!  UNA MAS!”

Wright: “Tito had a lot of excuses for his loss to Bernard Hopkins, but there will be no excuses when he loses to me Saturday night. He will have lost to the better man and a smarter fighter. I have waited my whole professional life for this opportunity and I am well-prepared for a great fight.

Wright: “Can I take Tito’s best punch?  I don’t intend to find out.”

Wright: “I am considered an underdog in this fight because everyone knows Tito or they think I am the smaller man. But I am not the smaller man. This is a great weight for me.  I’m not jumping 13 pounds and two weight classes . . . it’s just six pounds and it’s my natural weight. I feel great and I have been working with naturally bigger men like Jeff Lacy, Antwun Echols and Carlos De Leon, Jr.  Lacy hits a lot harder than Tito. This is only the second time Tito has fought a natural middleweight who was not faded and we all know what happened when he fought Hopkins.”

Wright: “I don’t have to knockout Tito to win the fight. I will enjoy beating him up for 12 rounds and it will be a hard thing for him to take. My strategy is simple . . . to win the fight round by round. And that is exactly what I will do too.”

Wright: “Shane Mosley made a very big mistake looking ahead to fighting Trinidad before our first fight. If Tito wants to make that same mistake—looking ahead to fighting Hopkins before he fights me—who am I to complain?  I’m just looking forward to that big-money rematch.”

Wright: “After I beat Tito in the rematch, my hit list is Hopkins and De La Hoya. Weight is NOT an issue. If the big-money fight is at 154, I’ll go down to that weight. If it’s 160, I’ll stay at this weight. I’ll even fight at 168 pounds. I want to fight the best in any of those divisions.”

Wright: “The Corrales-Castillo fight was great, but it’s the kind of fight that can shorten your career.  I’ll go to war to win a fight, but that is not my primary strategy for winning.”

* * *

Birmingham: “We will be implementing very specific things to counter Tito. This fight is all about Winky. If Winky executes the game plan, there is nothing Tito can do to stop it.  Nothing.”

Birmingham: “I have watched and broken down tapes of many of Tito’s fights. All you have to do is study the first six rounds of De la Hoya-Trinidad and the last six rounds of Hopkins–Trinidad to get a blueprint on how to defeat Tito.”

Birmingham: “Winky always…ALWAYS … rises to the level of his competition, and he always fights with his brains and his skills. Winky is a smart fighter.”