Duddy vs. Lyell on Friday night

By Jim Dower: Unbeaten middleweight contender John Duddy (26-0, 17 KOs) will be returning to action tomorrow night against the light hitting journeyman Billy Lyell (18-7, 3 KOs) in a scheduled 10-round bout at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey. Duddy, 29, is staying busy while he waits for an eventual title shot against WBO holder Kelly Pavlik. At this point, Duddy is taking things easy and not about to take a risky fight against someone dangerous that could potentially mess up his plans.

Duddy, ranked #2 in the WBO, could have fought Ronald Hearns in January. However, Duddy instead opted to face Matt Vanda, who Duddy defeated by a 10-round unanimous decision in February. The win was hardly impressive, though, as Duddy played it safe against the soft hitting Vanda for nine rounds, throwing often nothing but jabs.

It seemed as if Duddy was purposely trying to keep from turning the bout into a war and possibly getting cut up by Vanda. As it turned out, Vanda turned it on in the 10th round and rocked Duddy, landing a huge number of head shots as the two fighters brawled for the last three minutes of the fight.

It’s a good thing for Duddy that Vanda didn’t fight this way earlier, because I have my doubts whether Duddy would have made it out of the fight in one piece. Duddy’s a good fighter, but he takes way too many head shots and doesn’t have much power to speak of. Against almost any good fighter, Duddy is at danger of losing if he decides to slug with them.

His new boxing style of fighting seemed to suit him well, although it’s unknown how well Duddy will do once he faces a live opponent. Stiff opposition is something that Duddy hasn’t faced in ages, perhaps since defeating a shot Howard Eastman by a 19-round decision in December 2007. Duddy would follow that by getting badly beaten up by Walid Smichet in February 2008.

That fight seemed to signal a need for Duddy to change his style of fighting, as he was almost beaten by the B-level Smichet and had to work hard to salvage a 10-round majority decision. Given Duddy’s inflated rankings in the IBF, WBC and WBO, it didn’t look good that he was forced to battle hard to get a win over a fighter in the class of Smichet. Since that fight, Duddy went back to the drawing board and used his jab much more in victories over Charles Howe and Vanda.

Not wanting to mess up his chance for a title shot, Duddy will be fighting Lyell tomorrow night. Lyell, 24, has nothing that really stands out about him other than he stood tough in a fight with James Kirkland in 2007, fighting hard for eight rounds before being taken out in the 8th round. Lyell has since been beaten by Luis Ramon Campos, David Lopez and most recently to Vanes Martirosyan.

However, Lyell has an excellent chin and puts a lot of pressure on his opponents. I don’t imagine that then weak punching Duddy has nearly enough power to take Lyell out tomorrow night. I see this fight as ending with Duddy winning by a narrow decision. Lyell isn’t that good, but then again, I don’t think Duddy is either.

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