Winky Wright knocked down Ike Quartey late in the second round and went on win the 12-round middleweight fight between two old friends with a unanimous decision on Saturday night.
The former junior middleweight champion landed a right to the head to drop Quartey with about 20 seconds left in the second round. He rocked Quartey, a former WBA welterweight champion, again with a hard left to the head midway through the eighth.
The 35-year-old Wright, a St. Petersburg resident fighting on 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.
Buddies 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, which drew an announced crowd of 13,825 to the St. Pete Times Forum for Wright's homecoming, 117-110, 117-110 and 117-109.
Both fighters were coming off controversial decisions that left them feeling slighted in their most recent fights.
Wright, who threw 1,011 punches to Quartey's 642, felt he won a middleweight title bout that ended in a draw with champion Jermain Taylor in June and has been unable to arrange a rematch.
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 _ his first loss since resuming his career last year.
The friends both were hoping to position themselves for more lucrative paydays down the road.
In addition to wanting a rematch with Taylor, Wright also would like an opportunity to face De La Hoya, who was a co-promoter of Saturday night's card. Quartey also hopes a fight with De La Hoya is in his future.
On the undercard, former super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy won a 10-round majority decision over Ukrainian Vitali Tsypko and superbantamweight Rey Bautista of the Philippines, remained unbeaten when Brazil's Giovanni Andrade was unable to answer the bell for the fourth round of their scheduled 10-rounder.
Lacy rebounded from losing his IBF title to Welshman Joe Calzaghe in March, holding on after dominating the early rounds. One judge scored the fight a draw and the other two had it 96-94 for Lacy.
Two of the three judges had Tsypko winning the last four rounds.
