Duddy To Fight Vanda On February 23rd

Undefeated Irish middleweight John Duddy (23-0, 17 KOs) has reportedly changed the date for his bout with Matt Vanda (37-5, 21 KOs), moving it to February 23rd at Madison Square Garden, in New York Cit. Duddy, 28, had his bout with Vanda pushed back several weeks from the previous date, though no word was given as to why the move was made. Duddy, who recently defeated Howard Eastman by 10-round unanimous decision on December 8th, is hoping to stay unbeaten with hopes of landing a big money fight with World Boxing Council/World Boxing Organization middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, possibly as early June.

However, Duddy may try to fight again before that, should he stop Vanda early on. Duddy is still pretty much a mystery, as it’s hard to tell how good he really is. He’s only faced limited competition up to this point, and the quality fighters that he has faced - Howard Eastman and Luis Ramon Campas - were both considered over-the-hill at the time of Duddy’s bouts with them. However, Duddy looked impressive in beating Eastman, staying in close with him to prevent him from getting his shots off.

Pavlik, though, will be a big step up for Duddy, and few people give him much of a chance in the bout. Of course, that fight hinges on Pavlik successfully defeating Jermain Taylor in their rematch on February 16th. Should Pavlik lose to Taylor, it’s unlikely that Pavlik will be interested in fighting Duddy, at least in the near term, as he’ll be focused more specifically on another rematch with Taylor.