By Tim Williams: In what was supposed to have been an easy set up fight for a potential shot at WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, undefeated Irish middleweight John Duddy (24-0, 17 KOs) won an ugly 10-round majority decision over Tunisian Walid Smichet (17-4-3, 13 KOs) on Saturday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The final judges’ scores were 95-95, 98-92 and 98-92. However, if it weren’t for Smichet tiring out after the 3rd round, Duddy would have very likely have been stopped either on cuts or knocked out.
In the first two rounds, Duddy took tremendous punishment from the hard-hitting Smichet, absorbing huge combinations. Duddy showed almost no ability to avoid punches as Smichet was able to hit him cleanly with almost every punch he threw. By the end of the first round, Duddy’s left eye was already beginning to swell from the many shots he’d been hit. However, a nasty cut was opened up above Duddy’s left eye in the 3rd after he was hit with some especially brutal shots in the round by Smichet.
Though Smichet quickly faded after the 3rd round, Duddy continued to get hit with an occasional huge shot from Smichet in the remaining seven rounds of the fight. In the 4th round, Duddy was cut again, this time over his right eye. However, it wasn’t as bad as the previous cut, but it was still worrisome because the two cuts bled badly, making it suspenseful whether the referee would step in and halt the bout due to combination of the two cuts.
Instead of staying on the outside and trying to avoid shots so that he could protect the cuts, Duddy, as usual, stood directly in front of Smichet trading shot for shot. Duddy stayed busy, working well with his jabs and good body shots. After the 5th round, it was almost all Duddy, as Smichet, now completely exhausted, was only sporadically able to land a shot of his own. When he would land, though, his punches often snapped Duddy’s head back.
With this victory, it remains questionable whether or not Duddy will be ready for a June 7th bout with Kelly Pavlik, if he decides that he wants to fight him. The cuts are especially bad and it will likely take more than four months for both of them to heal sufficiently for Duddy to be ready by then. More than, however, is the specter of Duddy not really being in the class of Pavlik. A fight against Pavlik, would almost be suicidal for Duddy, who is more like a club fighter than a legitimate top 5 fighter in my view.