By Jim Dower: More and more it appears that undefeated John Duddy (26-0, 17 KOs) will be getting a title shot against WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KOs) in the near future. Duddy did a commendable job in defeating Matt Vanda last Saturday night, winning most of the rounds quite easily using his jab to do the brunt of the work. It wasn’t particularly an eye-pleasing bout for the lack of action between the two fighters but given Duddy’s metamorphosis in fighting styles, it’s to be expected. Pavlik had an easy time defeating his opponent Marco Antonio Rubio by a 9th round stoppage.
Rubio hardly put up a fight, just taking shots for nine full rounds before bowing out after the 9th on his stool. All in all, it was a weekend of disappointing fights with Miguel Cotto and Michael Jennings, a 5th round stoppage win for Cotto, and Matt Korobov defeat of Cory Jones, rounding out the dull mix.
With his high ranking – number #2 in the WBO – it would appear that Duddy will be next in line for Pavlik unless Kelly can find someone a little more suitable. Obviously, he has to fight Duddy sooner or later due to his high ranking in the WBO, a belt which Pavlik has in his possession. But, unless Pavlik is in the position where he absolutely has to face Duddy, there’s got to be better options out there for him whether that be in the middleweight division or one of the other near divisions.
It isn’t that Duddy’s a bad fighter but rather the seems to bring little more to the table than Rubio did last night. In the past, Duddy would have been guaranteed for a semi-appealing fight filled with a lot of brawling and blood. Sadly, that’s all changed now that he’s picked up a new trainer and changed his fighting style and become more of a boxer. Indeed, Duddy rarely throws power punches anymore and is more content with throwing a lot of jabs, a ton of them in fact.
That won’t make for an exciting fight for Pavlik, who is more of a fighter that does well against opponents that open up with their offense. I’m sure he’ll have no problems solving Duddy’s new one-dimensional offense, but it will be more of a replay of Pavlik vs. Rubio than some of Kelly’s exciting fights of the past against Fulgencio Zuniga and Edison Miranda.
Even in Duddy’s old style of slugging, he never was close to approaching the fire power of Miranda and Zuniga as he’s more of a fighter with moderate power rather than a big puncher. This is why it would have been a total destruction if Pavlik had fought Duddy a year ago, and it wouldn’t have been pretty if you ask me.
Now, with Duddy’s total focus on jabbing, we’re probably looking at a fight that will creep a long for eight or nine rounds like the Rubio fight with Duddy exchanging jabs with the big power shots of Pavlik. As we saw with Cotto-Jennings, a fighter that tries to compete against a big power puncher by throwing only jabs is fighting a losing cause.
Maybe if the fight were fought in Germany, where they reward fighters like Felix Sturm that do little else but jab against power punchers, I could see Duddy winning some rounds and making the fight competitive but not in America. Over here, we reward rounds to the fighter that landed the more telling blows, not pop shooters like Joe Calzaghe and Sturm.
I’m hoping that Pavlik can somehow arrange a fight against the likes of Paul Williams, Arthur Abraham or even Chad Dawson if possible. At least with these fighters, we’re looking at a fight that will have some excitement for a change. Each brings a lot of power and a high work rate and will be keeping Pavlik on his toes.
The one thing that Pavlik doesn’t need is back to back fights against a dull safety-first opponent, and that’s why if I was him I wouldn’t select Duddy unless he was my mandatory and I was about to be stripped of my title. Pavlik doesn’t need to get a reputation of fighting soft opponents and with his choice of Gary Lockett last year, there’s a danger of that happening.
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