By Sean McDaniel: Undefeated middleweight contender John Duddy (25-0, 17 KOs) takes a big step in his career tomorrow night when he faces Matt Vanda (39-8, 22 KOs) at Madison Square Garden, in New York, New York. The bottom line is if Duddy doesn’t impress or if he loses the fight, he can just about kiss goodbye a title shot against the winner of the WBC/WBO middleweight title match between Kelly Pavlik and Marco Antonio Rubio tomorrow night.
Duddy already failed once before in putting himself in position for a title shot after getting battered around the ring by Walid Smichet in February 2008. Duddy won by a 10-round decision but received serious cuts around his eyes, bad enough to wipe out a title shot against Pavlik in June. Duddy would later deal with legal issues with his management, which would further complicate his life. Duddy returned four months later fighting well in defeating Charles Howe by a 10-round decision.
Duddy showed a lot of improvement from his fight with Smichet, using his jab more often and slugging it out much less than he had in most of his previous bouts. However, Howe wasn’t putting a lot of pressure on Duddy by trying to land anything, so it’s hard to tell how much Duddy has improved on resisting his normal urge to try and slug it out with his opponents.
Duddy’s opponent, Matt Vanda, showed a lot of toughness in two bouts against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in 2008. Unfortunately, he lost both of them but he gave Chavez a lot of problems by throwing massive amounts of pressure and staying on top of him the entire time. Vanda, not ranked in the top 15, has been brought in as an opponent for Vanda, someone without much power designed for Duddy to look good.
However, Vanda, if he fights the same way that he did against Chavez, he has a real chance of beating Duddy. The main reason for this is that Duddy is flawed with both his offense and defense, easily hit and someone who stands in front of his opponents where they can hit him. His skin has a tendency to cut easily, and many of his fights have been virtual bloodbaths, with Duddy leaking blood all over the place.
Duddy has had some close calls with a faded Howard Eastman, Smichet, and Yory Boy Campas, beating all of them in tough fights in which Duddy received a lot of punishment. Tomorrow night figures to be the same kind of fight, although it shouldn’t judging by the differences in the two fighters’ records and rankings. Vanda and Duddy will probably stand toe-to-toe slugging it out, blocking few punches and thrilling the fans.
While Duddy has added a new trainer in Pat Burns to try and teach him some better defense and offensive skills, at 29, it’s doubtful he can significantly change his style in any real way. By small degrees, Duddy may look slightly different but once the punches start flying, he’ll revert to what he’s always been – a brawler.