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Boxing Roundup: For Duddy, it’s 3 ‘blind’ fights

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

And in typical no nonsense manner, the undefeated middleweight doesn’t care.
“I’ll take on whomever,” he shrugged last Sunday after a benefit event in White Plains for the American Association for the Improvement of Boxing. “Eddie’s confident we’ll have an opponent. I’m just training hard and feeling in great shape,” Duddy said, leaving the search to co-manager Eddie McLoughlin.
According to McLoughlin, the name of Oscar Gonzalez, a 7-2 junior middleweight from Tampa, Fla., has been floated around but there is nothing concrete.
Since resuming his promising career following a seven-month stay in Ireland, Duddy has boxed twice but not known his opponents on both occasions until fight night.
Saturday on the Final Forum show will be the third time the 25-year-old will be going into a match blind, figuratively speaking.
Duddy is 6-0 (6 KOs) after his 39-second blowout of William Johnson at the Manhattan Center last month. Before that, he’d stopped light heavyweight Victor Paz in just two minutes and four seconds of the first round last October.
Duddy, meanwhile, received words of wisdom at the AAIB function from the man whose undisputed title he one day hopes to win: middleweight king Bernard Hopkins.
“He told me to keep working hard in the gym and never get soft or start believing the hype,” Duddy disclosed. “He said I should stay modest and humble and keep the same dedication in the gym. It was an amazing experience talking to him.”

HEAVY TASK
Jim McDonnell, best remembered in his fighting days for retiring Irish ring icon Barry McGuigan in 1988, could add another feather to his coaching cap this Saturday night when Danny Williams challenges Vitali Klitschko for the WBC heavyweight championship in Las Vegas.
The son of County Mayo natives, McDonnell has trained Williams, an intriguing fighter out of London’s tough Brixton neighborhood, for the better part of five years.
Williams, for the record, is the fighter who accepted lesser money
($200,000 by one account) than the reported $450,000 offered to New England-based Irishman Kevin McBride to face Mike Tyson last summer.
Williams’ gamble paid off when he demolished the once-formidable Tyson in four rounds to earn a big payday against the 6-foot-7 Klitschko, who is widely regarded as the best heavyweight in the world.
“Danny is the most naturally gifted fighter I’ve ever worked with,” McDonnell said in an interview in Las Vegas last week. “He has speed of thought and hands, fast feet, great cardiovascular strength and endurance.”
McDonnell, of course, can take credit for these attributes. Unlike today’s super athletes, whose retinue includes nutritionists, conditioning coaches and experts for every imaginable aspect of physical activity, Team Williams is a two-man show dubbed “Danny & Jimmy.”
McDonnell has long touted his charge as boxing’s best secret, a claim he kept hyping before Williams obliterated Tyson.
“The secret’s out now (and) come December 11, Danny will become the biggest thing in boxing,” he said.
Should the 31-year-old Williams (32-3, 27 KOs) upset Klitschko, who’s two years older, 34-2 (33 KOs), and admittedly disturbed by the turmoil in his native Ukraine, McDonnell will become the first Irish trainer to win the world heavyweight title with two different fighters.
McDonnell, who as a boxer failed in two bids for world championships, led Herbie Hide to the fringe WBO crown twice, with KO victories over Americans Michael Bentt in 1994 and Tony Tucker in 1997.
Naturally, the 44-year-old London-born trainer is confident that Williams will prevail on Saturday night.
The plan is for Williams, all 6-2 and 260 pounds of him, to set a fast tempo and chop away at the giant Ukrainian’s body in the hope of wearing him down, upon which the challenger will go for the kill.
“Danny could win with a one-punch KO if Klitschko comes out to fight, otherwise a good body attack will break him down and then we’ll stop him in the ninth round,” McDonnell predicted.
Williams said he was in much better shape than he was for the Tyson fight, after what will be a 10-week training camp come this weekend.
“I’m an all-around better fighter than him and I’m prepared to go 12 fast paced rounds,” he added.
With McDonnell in his corner, Williams has only lost once: a sixth round KO defeat by Sinan Samil Sam in February 2003. That, however, was the old Williams who suffered from a deficiency of confidence.
His win over Tyson was a massive confidence booster. And, if she shows the same resolve and ability against Klitschko, “Danny & Jimmy could become the hottest duo in a weak heavyweight division.
Once a two-sport wonder who was an apprentice with Watford Football Club, McDonnell turned pro in 1983. He was a competent but fairly undistinguished boxer when he stopped the great Barry McGuigan on cuts in 1988 to end the “Clones Cyclone’s” career.
McDonnell was 26-4 (12 KOs) when he finally hung up his gloves in 1998 after dropping a six-rounder to Peter Feher in Slovakia. This was eight years after his first retirement following a fourth-round KO loss to Kenny Vice in London.
His other defeats were to world super featherweight champions Azumah Nelson and Brian Mitchell in 1988 and 1989, respectively.

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