Let's hear it for blood and guts Duddy! by Terry Dooley Feb 26th 2008

After his laboured points win over Walid Smichet, John Duddy again finds himself under fire from boxing fans, and with some justification.  Duddy turned up for his bout at Madison Square Garden with plenty of fans, plus he showed massive cojones, a great chin and tremendous heart. However these qualities are underpinned by his insane disregard for the fineries of defence. In boxing as if blocking and parrying had been deemed illegal, Duddy did the impossible, winning a preliminary fight whilst in the process ruling himself out of a title shot. Like many fans, this writer wrote Duddy off earlier in his career – for my money the fight with Alfredo Cuevas exhibited a lot of his flaws. It seemed then, as now, that Duddy is a fighter who fits the Irish desire for a leading titleholder, and the assumption was that this fan base would bring him a title shot someday, with Duddy then being given as much chance as a lamb in a slaughterhouse.  After Saturday's struggle my first thought was to crouch before my PC damning Duddy as having been exposed once again. However something stopped me from doing this. Once the violence of the Duddy fight was over something terrible happened, Wladimir ‘Peace' Klitschko entered the ring to ‘fight' Sultan ‘Apathy' Ibragimov, and then produced what appeared to be a game of slapsies. This caused me to think again about the performance of Duddy, not the brass tacks of the fight, Duddy was shocking, but the fact that in wanting to give all for the fans Duddy saved a TV-bill that was topped by a fight in which the protagonists did more damage to heavyweight boxing's image than they did to one another.  Instead of damning Duddy we should be thankful to him for his honest commitment to the sport of boxing, as well as his refusal to play it safe before a packed auditorium. A few years ago the phrase ‘old school boxing' entered the boxing lexicon, partially to justify the increasingly insipid displays of veteran boxer Bernard Hopkins. The argument, often put forward by Hopkins himself, was that the likes of Bernard, and, more fittingly, James Toney, were boxing in a way reminiscent of the boxers of the 1950s.  If that was truly the case then it is hard to imagine how the fighters of the past would get steady employment. It is more fitting to say that Hopkins and co. used defensive moves shown by the leading boxers of past rather than capturing the essence of their eras. Hopkins' defenders use terminology to defend the tepid nature of his recent boxing whereas Duddy boxes with the honesty of a plain-speaking man, a man who has nothing but disdain for the vanity driven verbiage of the rhetorician. Unfortunately this refusal to dress things up a little, perhaps by parrying the odd shot, means Duddy is doomed to be remembered as a glorified club fighter.  The more general fighting style that characterised the 1950s was that of the club or TV fighters; men who would engage in engaging give-and-take battles, particularly in the middleweight division. To that end using the odd shoulder roll or box-clinching in major bouts is not strictly old school boxing, it is a misappropriation of the styles of former greats by active fighters vying for greatness, fighters hoping to bask in the reflective glow of a golden generation of defensive boxing.  The spectacle we witnessed at the weekend whilst watching John Duddy go life-or-death with journeyman Walid Smichet was more akin to the day-to-day of real old school boxing, and we certainly saw that Duddy did not employ staid defensive techniques in his split-decision win. In the early rounds Duddy fought like a 1950s circuit fighter, one who is desperate to break punching statistics in order to ensure he gets further work. There was an absence of the circumspection one should expect from a fighter who was standing on the cusp of a middleweight title fight against Kelly Pavlik (Duddy's handlers should place a career long restraining order on Pavlik).  Indeed, in the first four rounds Duddy was hit so hard, so cleanly, and so often, that we could be forgiven for shifting uncomfortably in our seats. In wanting to give something to his fans Duddy gave too much and is now in the unique position of having thrown away his title shot despite winning his semi-final bout. Pragmatically, and from the physical angle, the Duddy camp can point to the fact that John boxed for the majority of the bout with a cut, an injury that would have ended most fights, this fact entails that he cannot physically fight Pavlik in June or July.  However, there can also be no doubt that, mentally, Duddy cannot honestly go into a fight with the best middleweight in the world hoping for victory. Pavlik is leagues ahead of Duddy at this moment in time. A fight between the two would be a throwback fight between two fighters who love to fight, a rare trait at the higher levels. It would also be a punishing nights work for Duddy, his best hope would be that he could break Pavlik's fists with his own chin. Those who said Duddy was being moved quickly into a title fight precisely because of his developmental stagnation can now feel satisfied that this prediction has borne fruit, yet there should also be an acknowledgement that, for all his defensive flaws, Duddy, rather than Hopkins or Wlad, provides the drama that causes us to follow the sport of boxing so slavishly. Disappointment at the lack of development shown by Duddy since his war with Campas needs to be tempered with an acknowledgement that his crowd pleasing style is what gives boxing its drive and drama. People will remember his war with Walid far longer than the anodyne heavyweight ‘fight' that followed it. Like committed middleweight wild men such as William Lee and Juan Roldan, Duddy is destined never to reach the truly elite level in boxing. At best he can hope to collide with a titleholder, and in the process show his dedication, heart and determination. Although it must be said that, like Lee, Duddy is being exposed in the preliminaries. Fellow Irish boxer Billy Conn – who had a lot more acumen in the defence department than Duddy – put it best when, after making the mistake of bombing with Joe Louis, he shrugged off his folly with the line “What's the use of being Irish if you can't be thick?”.  In Irish slang there is a pronunciation of t'ick' that merely means stubbornness or a pigheaded refusal to change. Duddy himself showed, in the later rounds on Saturday, that he can use boxing ability to win rounds but he seems too t'ick headed in his desire to express his national character in his fighting style.  Duddy harkens back to the days when the ethnic boxers based in New York fought with such character you could discern their nationality from their fighting styles. In particular the Irish produced crowd pleasers such as Mickey Walker, Billy Conn and Jimmy McLarnin. They were the old school guys through and through, men who acknowledged the inherent bind in boxing – that you can avoid punches in order to survive a fight but you need to land shots to win one. Certainly Duddy's chin has already been shown to be as tough as many of his fighting Irish forefathers, men who seemed impervious to pain in much the way it is said the Irish psyche is impervious to psychoanalysis. Duddy is fast proving himself to be in possession of one of the best chins in the game, with that said he need not display it in every fight. Duddy is showing off his chin with the naivety of the man who flashes a Rolex all the way through the toughest neighbourhoods.  Duddy can look at himself in the mirror and declare that he is truly an old school boxer, cut from the cloth of tough men from past times. Unfortunately this fighting character will hold him back from the highest level. In the meantime the likes of Duddy should be revered rather than reviled, top of the bill fights often disappoint but as long as guys like Duddy are in the game there will always be a pool of warriors ready to produce the fireworks, rather than the finery, that keep fans interested in the sport.

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