Has Duddy's time to shine arrived?

Firstly, forget about Matthew Macklin. His chin is not convincing me at middleweight. In his last fight he seemed buzzed everytime the other guy got near him.

I don't think Duddy is great, but he's round about world level in a less than deep middleweight division. He's okay offensively, very good chin, lacking defence. But he can bring excitement on the world stage, just don't expect him to be competing with Pavlik or Abraham.

I think Andy Lee still has a lot of potential. Now the expectations have been reigned in he has a chance to develop, but its going to take a while before he goes anywhere near a top 10 guy.

Dunne has nice skills...but you gotta wonder what happens when he gets caught by a big puncher again. There are still more questions than answers, but he has a pretty tough fight with Cordoba coming up that will give us a gauge.

McCloskey is the best of the lot and has a real chance to fight beltholders already IMO. He has already proven he is as good as anybody in Europe with his destruction of Lynes.

 

at the moment duddy beats lee on points i think but maybe in a year or two andy wins big

 

I can tell you that Lee would definately agree to fight duddy right now.

I dont know anything about the duddy side of it though.

Personally i wouldnt be interested in this fight unless a belt was on the line

 

Lee is the best of this crew.he has a real chance at a title in 2010.I think in 3 fights time he could beat Sturm.Its better for him to stay away from Pavlik and AA though.
Mc Closkey comes next but is in a fantastic division
Duddy could make some noise at light middle but cant see him winning a strap at middle.
Dunne has boxing ability but a suspect chin and is not good in a tough scrap.
Macklin may win a euro crown but that is his limit.
Paul Hyland will be the euro champ by the summer so maybe his name should be in this poll,I would put him ahead of dunne and macklin.

 

I'm glad everyone wants to see Duddy vs. Lee... Eventually Brian Peters might decide to put the two of them in the ring with each other in Thomond Park. It's the only domestic Irish fight that could come close to selling out Thomond Park. The belt thing is a big problem, as Andy holds the Irish super-middleweight one, and as for Duddy I can't see a man with aspirations of dropping to 154 fighting at 168.

Belt or no belt I want to see this fight....

 

:roll::roll::roll:

must have took you 10 minutes to come up with that gem........

 

lee was 162 lbs when he fought for the smw title!

It would need to be a world title for the fight to work imo......

 

It depends what you mean by "shine".

 

I've been wondering about this. His next fight is 160 and possibly Pavlik after that. I can guarantee you without bothering to check with anyone, Kelly ain't going to 154. Duddy just moved up for some cash and then plan on moving back down?

 

I've often wondered if the Irish fans really wanted to see these guys in an 'eliminator'. Would they even want unification if there were two belts or would they prefer to have two champs? I guess there would be two camps. Boxing fans and the general public. Are two world champions better than one? :think

 

its never what the fans want its what makes the money! you should know that

both fighters are promoted by peters in ireland so he would rather have two champs than one!

 

If both held two world titles at the same weight(never going to happen), both the Irish public and fans would scream out for a unification fight and the potential money would dictate it would happen.

Matthew Macklin is a decent fighter and I think he's potentially good enough to grab the European title. However I don't think he'll be up to it at World level. I fancy him to beat Wayne Elcock though and that will be an interesting comparrison of level seeing as Elcock has fought for a World title.

John Duddy would have a chance down at Light-Middleweight and be a damn good contender. A Middleweight however he'd need a hell of a lot of luck to grab a belt and against a Pavlik or an Abraham he'd be destroyed.

Bernard Dunne is skillfull enough to win a World title but seriously lacks a chin, doesn't have great power and his stamina is questionable aswell. However he does fight for a World title in his next bout and although I'd make Ricardo Cordoba a strong favourite I would give Dunne a 20-25% chance of pulling it off.

Lee has great potential but still needs quite a few things tightened up. He'll need to have a better strategy to cope for when guys get instead, even if he does improved with keeping guys in his range and out of theirs, there is always going to be a time in a fight when that changes and he'll either need to get much better at clinching or develop something like a good short uppercut to discourage fighters staying close to him and ruffing him up. He's a good prospect for a World title in a few years though and I think it's likely that even if he doesn't get to the level of Pavlik or Abraham that he would become better than Felix Sturm.

Paul McCloskey is another very good fighter and has an outside chance of getting a World title. I'd fancy him over Vivian Harris, Ajose Olusegun, Gianluca Branco or Naoufel Ben Rabah right now. However whether he'll develop to be good enough to beat the next level of guys, the Kendall Holt's, Juan Urango's and Ricardo Torres' of this World remains to be seen.
I'd fancy him very strongly to get the better of European champion Branco though......even in Italy.

Someone mentioned Paulie Hyland and claimed he'd be European soon and that he's a better chance than Dunne or Macklin. A bold claim........and a stupid one. I'm fancying Napa to get the better of Hyland, so that's the European title out the window and he's already shown up by a Puerto Rican journeyman in America so I'm not sure where this World class potential will come from. I do fancy him to get a European title at some point during his career but he's nowhere near Worls level.

His brother Patrick Hyland is a better prospect and one I'm eager to see matched tough in the near future.

Darren Sutherland is of course someone to watch aswell. But with only one fight under his belt it's going to be hard to tell how succesful he'll be.

 

Nice post. I'd only make an exception to the boxing skills of Abraham. He can be out boxed, but you need enough power to make him respect you. Miranda took the first rounds of the rematch while AA stayed behind his guard and fought for 30 seconds a round. But his title fights will all be under Saurland's commission, so out boxed means 20 count. Or more. Ask Miranda. TKO = 2 minute break and an opponent that wins rounds running away. :-(