John Duddy: A Future Champion or Merely Hype?

By Boxing News - 04/25/2008 - Comments

duddy574343.jpgBy Robert Cavender: Going into his last fight with the tough Walid Smichet on February 23rd, undefeated Irish middleweight John Duddy (24-0, 17 KOs) had been on the cusp of a superstardom, on the verge of fighting middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik for a June 7th bout at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Unfortunately for Duddy, he seemed to be looking for ahead of his opponent, appearing to be thinking of his fight with Pavlik, which would be earning Duddy a huge payday, instead of the fighter in front of him. As it happened, Duddy took a tremendous about of punishment from Smichet in the first five rounds of the fight, getting cut in a couple of places on his face which required extensive amounts of stitches to repair.

With the amount of cuts Duddy received, it forced him out of circulation for three months while the cuts have slowly healed. Worse than that, however, is how bad Duddy looked against Smichet. It had been predicted that Duddy would have an easy time beating Smichet, who was pretty much tailor made for Duddy’s style of fighting – or so people though. Instead of using his excellent boxing skills, Duddy opted to get into the trenches with the powerful but limited Smichet, abandoning any thoughts of defense of finesse in hopes of impressing the large New York crowd with a big knockout win.

It didn’t happen, and it was Duddy who turned out to be the one in danger of being stopped due to the bloody mess that Smichet made out of his face through 10 brutal rounds. While Duddy eventually won the fight by a majority decision, there were many who saw the fight who felt that Smichet actually won the fight. Whatever the case, the damage was done, and it mattered little whether Duddy won or lost because of how bad he looked during the course of the bout. As a result of the fight, Duddy lost out on his chance of title fight with Pavlik, which ended up going to Gary Lockett.

Perhaps that’s a good thing, for Duddy, based on how he looked against Smichet, would have likely lost in a spectacular fashion against the likes of Pavlik. Duddy has no immediate plans for a bout, still looking for the right opponent to get back into the ring against. However, whoever it ends up being, Duddy needs to start working on building up his boxing skills more, focusing more on that angle rather than attempting to slug it out every time out. Indeed, his offensive skills are quite good and clearly world class, but his tendency to brawl too often is something that will possibly limit how far he can progress as a fighter.

In his fight with Howard Eastman in December 2007, Duddy showed marvelous boxing skills en route to winning a 10-round unanimous decision. Rather than attempting to trade shots with the powerful Eastman, Duddy played it smart and stayed close to Eastman, smothering his power and preventing him from getting off his own shots. When he wants to, Duddy can control his slugging instincts and fight smart.

The problem is, he seems to overlook some of his opponents, such as Luis Ramon “Yory Boy” Campas, and end up with tougher than expected fights. Based on his skills, Duddy seems to have the ability to go all the way and win at least one or two of the titles, though not against Pavlik, but he’s going to need to learn to control his tendency to slug it out all the time if he truly wants to get to the top. For some people, they’ve already written him off since his last fight with Smichet, but I think there badly underestimating how good Duddy he is.