Duddy does just enough

Irishman scrapes to split decision victory

Last updated: 14th March 2010   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Duddy does just enough

Duddy: Made to work hard

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John Duddy won a split decision against Michael Medina in Texas on Saturday night.

The American-based Irishman, touted as a possible world middleweight title challenger one day, did just enough to scrape the verdict despite having a decided size advantage over Medina - a natural light-middleweight.

Duddy (now 29-1) is more cautious now than the gung-ho days of old, and boxed carefully during the early rounds to build a lead.

But a game Medina (now 23-2-2) fought back well to land decent shots of his own, and dominated the final round to win the bout 96-93 on one scorecard.

Duddy though got the nod from the other judges to take the 10-rounder on the Pacquiao/Clottey undercard at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington.

Also on the undercard, Mexican veteran Jose Luis Castillo was retired on his stool after five one-sided rounds against former Contender star Alfonso Gomez.

The showdown appeared to be one final bid to return to the big time for the now 36-year-old Castillo.

But it's now several years since he pushed Floyd Mayweather Jr close and produced that epic war with Diego Corrales. And both those efforts were at lightweight.

The current Castillo is nothing like that vintage, and was always second best against Gomez (22-4) - seven years his junior.

Alfonso was destroyed by Miguel Cotto in his only bout at world-title level, but he had far too much for Castillo here.