Quartey no match for Wright

A determined Winky Wright felt he had something to prove.

“They say I can’t punch,” the former world junior-middleweight champion said Saturday night at Tampa, Fla. “I wanted to show that I can.”

One of the best defensive fighters in the business, Wright went on the offensive and knocked down Ike Quartey late in the second round and won the 12-round middleweight fight between two old friends with a unanimous decision.

Wright threw 1,011 punches to Quartey’s 642. He was still going strong in the last round, but couldn’t finish off his game opponent.

“I dropped him. I hurt him. But he kept coming back,” Wright said. “I wish I could have knocked him out, but Ike’s a durable guy.”

Wright landed a right to the head to drop Quartey with about 20 seconds left in the second round. He rocked his opponent again with a hard left to the head midway through the eighth.

The 35-year-old Wright, a St. Petersburg resident fighting on his home turf for the first time since 1992, improved to 51-3-1 with 25 knockouts.

Quartey (37-4-1) fell to 3-2 since resuming his career in 2005 after taking more than four years off following a pair of disappointing losses in 1999 and 2000.

Friends since the early 1990s when they were young boxers competing in France, Wright and the 37-year-old Quartey had no problem putting their friendship on hold for a night in hopes of positioning themselves for a big-money fight in the near future.

The judges scored the fight 117-110, 117-110 and 117-109.

“He’s a good fighter. It was tougher than I thought fighting a southpaw,” Quartey said. “He didn’t hurt me. I thought I did enough to win the fight.”

Both fighters were coming off controversial decisions that left them feeling slighted in their most recent fights.

Wright, who landed 269 punches to Quartey’s 174, felt he won a middleweight title bout that ended in a draw with champion Jermain Taylor in June.

Quartey, who quit boxing six years ago after losing consecutive fights to Oscar De La Hoya and Fernando Vargas, dropped a close 10-round decision to Vernon Forrest in August.

*

Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico administered a relentless beating to Carlos Quintana, also from Puerto Rico, to win the vacant World Boxing Assn. welterweight title at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J.

The fight was stopped before Quintana could come out for the sixth round.

Cotto’s win was reminiscent of his last fight, a 12-round decision over Paul Malignaggi in June in which he broke Malignaggi’s cheekbone.

This time, Cotto (28-0, 23 KOs) came out from the opening bell and mercilessly pounded Quintana, who entered the fight 23-0 with 18 knockouts.

In the semi-main event, Antonio Margarito of Mexico won a unanimous decision over Joshua Clottey of Ghana to successfully defend his World Boxing Organization welterweight title.

Margarito (34-4), who was making his seventh defense of the belt he won in 2002, trailed early but gradually wore down Clottey (30-2), who was appearing in his first title fight.