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I've been waiting for this fight for a minute. I was gonna go but I didn't feel like digging through craigslist for seats. Hopefully its a good fightat least, I'll be surprised if Klitschko loses.
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Kelly Pavlik vs. John Duddy is in Jeopardy
By Mark Vester
According to promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank, a potential battle between WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (33-0, 29KOs) and "Irish" John Duddy (24-0, 17KOs) is possibly on the verge of being scrapped.
On the undercard to Wladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov at New York's Madison Square Garden, Duddy struggled to win a ten-round majority decision over unheralded opponent Walid Smichet (17-4-3, 13KOs). The scores were 95-95, 98-92 and 98-92.
Duddy took a lot of damage in the fight, including a very serious cut above his left eye, which may take a while to fully heal. Duddy was the frontrunner to fight Pavlik on June 7, also scheduled at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Arum, who flew down to New York to view Duddy's fight and was scheduled to officially announce Pavlik-Duddy at the Klitschko-Ibragimov post-fight press conference, feels the cuts sustained by Duddy may cancel the fight out until a later date. If Duddy is officially ruled out, the hunt will begin for a new opponent.
"It's silly to force the fight," Arum told the AP. "You don't know if (Duddy) is going to fight or not fight. … But Kelly's going to fight three times this year so we'll do it down the road."