About John Duddy

John was born in Derry City, Northern Ireland on June 19th 1979.
Boxing was in the blood for John as his father Micky Duddy was a professional boxer also and so John first entered the gym with his Dad at the age of 5.

In his amateur career Duddy fought 130 times, winning 100 of those bouts. Along the way he won the light middleweight title at junior, intermediate and senior level.
Duddy represented Ireland at European competitions and he also competed in Olympic Qualifiers.

Disillusioned with his amateur career Duddy crossed the Atlantic in 2003 to begin his professional career.
He made his professional debut in September 2003 against Tarek Rashed, winning by knockout in round one.

Duddy quickly built up a loyal fanbase due to his exciting, explosive boxing style, easy charm, and star quality.

In his career to date Duddy is unbeaten in 27 fights and has 68% KO ratio (17 KO's).

In 2008 things began to go wrong for Duddy, beginning with his fight with Walid Smichet, which resulted in John sustaining cuts over both eyes which required surgery. Duddy, wanting to please the crowd, got dragged into a toe to toe battle with Smichet and although he pulled it out in the latter rounds to eventually win the fight, the poor performance put an end to John's hopes of landing a title fight with Kelly Pavlik.
This wasn't to be his only setback, it turned out that Duddy and his management Irish Ropes, who had always seemed to have a good partnership, were to part ways over promotional and money issues.

Duddy is now free from his contract with Irish Ropes and will get his comeback started against Matt Vanda on February 21st in Madison Square Garden in front of his legion of loyal fans.