Will Duddy Succeed As a Light Middleweight?

By Boxing News - 08/09/2008 - Comments

duddy5743432.jpgBy Sean McDaniel: If there was ever a chance for unbeaten top middleweight contender John Duddy (25-0, 17 KOs) to succeed, at least temporarily, it’s his potential fight with current IBF light middleweight champion Verno Phillips (42-10-1, 21 KOs), who Duddy may be facing either on September 27th or October 11th. Duddy is moving down from the middleweight division where he has worked his way up to the lofty #2 spot in the WBC/WBC despite facing mostly soft opposition. It wasn’t until his fight with Walid Smichet, a good B level fighter with a powerful punch, that Duddy began to reconsider his options, thinking perhaps he might be better off if he moved down in weight to the middleweight division.

Of course, Smichet helped him make his decision a little easier by almost knocking him out early in the fight and tearing his face up badly, causing Duddy to later on need a tremendous amount of stitches to close up several cuts on his face. Though Duddy won the fight by a 10-round majority decision, he didn’t impress many boxing fans who witnessed the fight. As it turned out, pretty much counted as a loss for Duddy, as it wiped out a potential big money fight with champion Kelly Pavlik, who Duddy was being considered to fight in June.

After Duddy’s badly ripped up face healed, he fought Charles Howe, a C-level opponent, on June 28th, beating him by an easy 10-round unanimous decision. However, as good as Duddy looked against Howe, this was a fighter that most top middleweights would have likely taken out in a round or two, yet Duddy was unable to take him even though he hit him with a lot of big shots for 10-rounds. Like most of his fights, he was hit routinely by Howe in the fight.

Later, Duddy, with the help of his training team and management, decided that he would be better off as a junior middleweight due to his average size as middleweight. Just looking at Duddy’s slight built, it seems like the wise decision for him to move down in weight. He would have probably been taken apart by Pavlik, and likewise by IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham. Against both, Duddy would have been at a clear disadvantage in terms of power and size, and would have been forced to eat a lot of big shots while he plodded forward in his typical brawling style of fighting.

With that said, it’s unclear whether Duddy will be that much better off as a light middleweight, either. While he may find some limited success against the 38 year-old Phillips, who at his advanced age, he’s easy pickings for almost any good light middleweight. However, I’m not even so certain that Duddy can beat even Phillips, who hits hard, has good power and has excellent boxing skills. Whether Duddy knows this or not, this will be potentially a very hard fight for him if they do end up meeting in the ring.

If somehow Duddy does come out on top, he’s presented with a murderer’s row of excellent fighters that would by vying for a title shots against him, fighters such as James Kirkland, Sechew Powell, Joel Julio, Cory Spinks, Alex Bunema, Roman Karmazin, and Zaurbek Baysangurov, to name just a few. Of them, I give Duddy exactly no chance of winning against any of them. He might get lucky against Karmazin, whose chin may not be the same after a 10th round stoppage against the hard-hitting Bunema in January. However, if Karmazin remains standing, I see him beating Duddy, too.

These guys are all very talented, a level above Duddy in power and boxing ability, and this isn’t an entire list of all the top junior middleweights that I feel would be too good for him. There’s at least three more that would beat Duddy as well, starting with Vernon Forrest, Alfredo Angulo and Ronald Hearns. I do think, however, that Duddy could beat someone like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., a flawed fighter with a lot of power, but poor stamina, terrible work rate and equally dismal defensive skills.

This would seem like the ideal fight for Duddy, a bout between two overly hyped fighters with unbeaten records. This would be a good option for Duddy if he wins the title against Phillips, which would give him at least one winnable title defense before he quickly loses his title when he’s eventually forced to take on his number#1 mandatory opponent. Even if Duddy should lose, Chavez Jr. remains a good option down the road, particularly after someone defeats Chavez. That would leave them both as damaged goods, and it would be a decent fight that would generate good money most likely.



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