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With a Wink, Smile and a Familiar Laugh - Winky Wright and Sam Soliman Fight Beyond Cute
TUE December 13, BUSTER PARIS - Remember when you were a kid and you picked a fight with an older kid. The older kid would put their hand over your head – palming it like a basketball – and you would just swing and swing and swing like a pathetic human windmill?
Well, that was the nostalgic feeling I had on Saturday night – December 10 2005 watching Winky Wright basically palming the head of “Smiling” Sam Soliman – at least for the first handful of rounds.
I like Sam Soliman. He seems like such an interesting individual. He is without a doubt one of the most high energy and gung-ho persons I’ve ever seen.
A perfect example of Soliman idling at a high speed is that between the weigh in and the night of the bout Winky did what pretty much every fighter does, he put on weight. Unofficially he put on 11 lbs – Sam actually lost a pound – I think that says it all.
He is so high energy that you would think that if you stood near him you could hear a hum emanating off of him.
Actually if you listen closely enough you can hear an all too familiar sound:
“Ha ha ha HA ha - ha ha ha HA ha - ha ha ha HA ha”
Yes, Sam Soliman is Woody Woodpecker - with boxing gloves.
Going in to this match I thought it would be a cakewalk for Wright, but as it turned out it was one of the hardest and toughest fights I’ve ever seen him in. They say styles make fights and it was completely unexpected that these two styles would compliment and frustrate each other as much as they did.
Usually Winky is in complete control of every aspect of a fight. Think back to his last fight this past May (May 14 2005) – where he completely dominated the legendary Felix “Tito” Trinidad which is not an easy thing to do - and if you look back to both fights with “Sugar” Shane Mosley we saw Wright controlling the action, pace and the outcome of engagements – he dictated everything all on his terms – so it was truly surprising to see Winky having such a difficult time with “Smiling” Sam.
Throughout the fight Wright looked like the true professional and Soliman looked like an industrious nuisance. For most of the fight it really did remind me of the big kid palming the little kids head and the little kid tirelessly windmilling away with punches.
Sam is that little kid and he fights as if he and his body are somehow two different entities – both completely hyperactive and both have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) - which explains the incredibly odd angles and the constant barrage of punches. Neither he nor his body knows or understands actual physics and he is able to throw a left jab, hook off it, almost fall over and then hook off the hook - and - jab off of that hook - and then once again hook off the jab and throw a right as he bounces left…
It’s actually more exhausting for us watching Soliman throw all those punches than it is for him to throw them.
For the first few rounds Winky would stalk Sam like Mike Meyers or Jason would stalk a victim and Sam would throw everything he could at Winky in a desperate attempt to save his own life, but Winky would just keep coming – he’d just keep trudging along blocking and knocking away punches like Mike Meyers would knock away oncoming toasters, trash cans and anything else hurled at him.
Then in between Soliman’s gawky cascading bombardment of leather Wright would land hard and penetrating blows that would knock Sam into the ropes and on the rebound Winky would land some more.
That’s how most of the fight went.
It wasn’t until the end of the 6th round that they began to “fight”. Winky started to trade more on the toe to toe level - and it wasn’t until somewhere in round 8 that Wright fans realized that this isn’t cute anymore, that Sam isn’t going to wind down and run out of gas.
Somewhere in round 8 it became apparent that Winky’s face was getting reddened and puffy - and that he was getting hit more than we’ve ever seen him get hit. There was nothing overly special about the blows landing on Wright, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to take shots - what made these punches distinctive was that it was on somebody else’s terms, somebody else decided that he was to get hit.
Round 10 – it looked like Winky had “King” Soliman hurt, knocking him into the ropes and nailing him with a tremendous left hand on the bounce back.
Rounds 11 and 12 – Sam was still producing an amazing output, not landing all of them, but he was incredibly busy - when all is said and done he would have thrown 1,260 punches for the entire night and only landing about 14% of them (174).
For Wright’s part in rounds 11 and 12 he preformed as he had all night – was great defensively and offensively he was landing the cleaner and more devastating punches, but he was having the most difficult time I’ve ever seen him have.
It was an unexpectedly interesting, exciting and compelling fight. What started off as a cute mosquito ended up being a dangerous opponent for Wright.
Winky’s final stats - he landed 300 of 652 punches – that’s 46%
We learned that Winky can still perform well in a fight that he is not in complete control over. That he can stay cool, adapt and handle the unorthodox – which should come in handy as he readies to fight Jermain Taylor (if that happens)
We learned that Sam Soliman is truly all smiles and business and I for one would love to see him fight again – also it’s good to know that the spirit of Woody Woodpecker lives on.
“Ha ha ha HA ha - ha ha ha HA ha - ha ha ha HA ha – ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa”
Buster Paris can be reached at: bparis@talkingboxing.com - and always enjoys receiving your thoughts, comments and questions
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