Early in his career, Winky Wright had to travel to Europe to get fights. It was the only way that he could stay busy and earn a living. Traveling to other boxers’ hometowns gave Wright some things that he couldn’t gain from fighting in his own backyard all the time – a steely determination to win and a supreme confidence.

Even though he doesn’t have to keep his passport handy these days, Wright still relies upon that experience. He will bring it all with him when he faces Bernard Hopkins (47-4-1, 32 KOs) in a 12-round light heavyweight match tonight in Las Vegas.

“I just feel I’m going to beat whoever I get in the ring with,” Wright said. “It ain’t so much just Bernard Hopkins. Whenever I get in a fight, whenever I take a fight, I feel that I’m going to beat you. There’s always a way to beat somebody, and I always train hard to do that.”

With his piston-like jab, armadillo-type defense and southpaw style, Wright (51-3-1, 25 KOs) is tough to beat. He has never been knocked out, and his loss to Fernando Vargas at 154 pounds and draw with middleweight champ Jermain Taylor were close enough to be disputed.

His two victories over Shane Mosley for the undisputed junior middleweight championship and his dominating performance over Felix Trinidad as a middleweight forced people to give him his due.

“Now I feel that the fans really respect me, the fans give me a lot of credibility for what I have accomplished,” Wright said. “If I beat all the fresh fighters in my generation around my weight class, then you can’t do nothing but say I’m one of the best fighters of my era.”

So as he steps into the ring against Hopkins, Wright feels he has just one thing to prove.

“This fight is to prove to the people that I can beat Bernard Hopkins, and I feel I just want to be the best out of my era,” he said. “This fight doesn’t define my career. My career is already defined for what I accomplished, for being an undisputed junior middleweight champion, for going up to middleweight, beating the middleweight champion but not getting a decision.”

Beating Hopkins can add another future legend to Wright’s resume, but it probably won’t raise his stature. He would probably have to add Oscar De La Hoya to that list to move up higher. During a conference call that was hosted by De La Hoya, whose Golden Boy Promotions is promoting the fight, Wright said that he would like to face De La Hoya before ending his career. De La Hoya wouldn’t commit to that, saying that he was just focusing on Hopkins-Wright.

Wright, meanwhile, is concerned about what he called dirty tactics by Hopkins.

“Well, just the way he uses his head, the way he hits you on the cup or hits you on the leg, and you know, he’s just a dirty fighter, point blank,” Wright said. “It’s definitely things he does on purpose, and he knows he can get away (with them). That’s how he fights. I’m going to be prepared for all of that.”