By Jim Dower: Fringe middleweight contender John Duddy (29-2, 18 KO’s) isn’t interested in taking his show over to the Europe or Ireland after suffering a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision loss to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) on June 26th at the Alamodome, in San Antonio, Texas.

There were thoughts that Duddy, 31, would opt to fight in his native Ireland, where he could potentially make a lot of money in middleweight clashes with fighters like Andy Lee and Mathew Macklin.

However, Duddy has decided to stick it out in the U.S. His Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has promised Duddy a fight against former World Boxing Association junior middleweight champion Yuri Foreman, telling him that the fight would sellout Madison Square Garden.

It appears that Duddy likes that idea a lot more than going back to Ireland and fighting in near obscurity. In an article at the Irishcentral.com, Duddy said “When I’ve fought back in Ireland, the fights have been successful for me personally, but no one in the States knew they had happened, they thought I had fallen off the planet. If you get beat in America, the whole world knows you’ve been beaten and if you win in American, the whole world knows you’ve won.”

Duddy might get a good payday against Foreman in his next fight, if what Arum says is true, but unless Duddy does good in that and actually wins it, he may find himself getting less and less chances. Duddy has now been beaten by Chavez Jr. and Billy Lyell, two decent fighters but hardly championship caliber opposition.

Before facing Duddy, Chavez Jr. had looked pretty much like a mediocre fighter. Duddy made him look a lot better than he probably is. Once Chavez Jr. is someday put in with a good – not great – junior middleweight or middleweight, we will likely see Chavez Jr. look once again mediocre.

If Duddy is soundly beaten by Foreman in his next fight, we may see Duddy all of a sudden changing his tune about wanting to fight in Ireland. Let’s hope there’s still interest in him by that time, because it would be Duddy’s third loss in his last six fights.

Duddy has been carefully matched for most of his career. Even the fights against Chavez Jr. and Lyell weren’t really tough match-ups for Duddy, and yet he failed in both fights.