Undefeated middleweight John Duddy (21-0, 16 KOs) will return to the boxing ring on October 20th when he fights in Dublin, Ireland against an un-named opponent. Duddy, 28, was born in the UK, but has Irish ancestry, has fought most of his career in the United States, where he resides in New York City. Earlier this year, Duddy decided on traveling to Ireland, where he has hopes on winning a European title, and hopefully along the way built up a large fan base in his native country. In his first bout in Ireland, Duddy struggled badly in the process of stopping Italian Alessio Furlan (19-8-5, 8 KOs) in the 10th round on July 14, 2007. It was a harsh greeting for Duddy, who had hoped to have an easy time beating the unheralded Furlan.
Duddy’s fights have been frequently been showcased on ESPN in the United States, where he has built up a following of loyal fans, despite the fact that he’s so far faced mostly limited opposition during his short career. Perhaps his toughest opponent to date, Luis Ramon “Yori Boy” Campas, fought Duddy to the brink of defeat on September 29, 2006.
Duddy was cut over both eyes and stunned by punches from Campas on a number of occasions during the fight. However, Duddy rallied late in the fight to pull out the decision by the scores of 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113. However, the bout was a wake up call for Duddy fans, who up to that point had been considering Duddy a can’t miss future champion.
Unfortunately, the fact that the old ring veteran Campas, then 35 and considered over-the-hill, was able to come close to beating the 26-year old Duddy, seemed to indicate that he perhaps wasn’t cut out for a future championship. More importantly, Duddy’s style of fighting, which involves him taking a lot of punishment, seemed to suggest that he would have problems in the future when he met up with a especially hard punching middleweight. As such, there was a call for Duddy to quickly develop his defensive skills with hopes that he could be more well rounded as a fighter, considering his offensive skills appeared to be working fine for this stage in his development. Duddy’s next two bouts in the United States, against Anthony Bonsante and Dupre Strickland, were fights which were intended to be used to work on Duddy’s deficiencies. However, as in the case with Campas, both fights saw Duddy taking considerable punishment in the process of winning both of the bouts.
Clearly, Duddy needed more time to work on his defense, as he was not ready to be pushed in against top flight opposition for fear that he’d face a disappointing defeat.