AMERICA AT LARGE:After the longest lay-off of his career, Derry's John Duddy is pencilled in to fight Matt Vanda, writes GEORGE KIMBALL

FOR THE past several months John Duddy had been more or less incommunicado, preferring to let his lawyers do his talking for him, but the undefeated Derry middleweight surfaced in New York Tuesday for the official announcement of his fight against Minnesota journeyman Matt Vanda two weeks from Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.

Duddy v Vanda will provide the principal supporting bout that evening for the WBO welterweight title fight between Miguel Cotto and Britain’s Michael Jennings. A charismatic Puerto Rican, Cotto has a demonstrated ability to put upwards of 10,000 customers in the seats just by showing up, and promoter Bob Arum anticipates that the addition of an anticipated 5,000 or so hard-core Duddy loyalists could produce a near-sellout at the Mecca of Boxing.

Nearly a year has now elapsed since Duddy was cut to ribbons in a controversial win over Tunisia’s Walid Smichet in the very same ring, and almost eight months have passed since his points win over Charlie Howe in Boston last June. While he has been involved in plenty of intervening fights, they have taken place in boardrooms and in judges’ chambers.

This sort of inactivity is rarely beneficial for a boxer, but the 29-year-old Duddy noted that the hiatus has not been without its benefits. For one thing, the longest lay-off of his career has given his wounds ample time to fully heal, and for another, “it’s not as if I haven’t kept busy”.

Before his November fight against Sam Hill and a proposed January date with Ronald Hearns imploded in the wake of his acrimonious split with Irish Ropes, Duddy pointed out: “I went through virtually an entire training camp, and then I got to celebrate a lovely Christmas back in Derry before I came back to the states and got back in the gym again.”

In other words, he essentially went through the preparations for two fights without exposing himself to the physical damage he might have incurred in actual combat.

Having relocated to a new home in his native city, Duddy spent the holidays there with his fiancé, Gráinne, and while he confesses to having eaten well during his sojourn back home, he did his best to keep himself in trim with conditioning workouts with his father, Mickey Duddy, and Charlie Nash, the one-time European lightweight champion and a long-time family friend.

One casualty of the holiday festivities appears to have been the mooted plan to campaign as a light-middleweight. Trainer Patrick Burns had revealed that intention after the Howe fight, and one sanctioning body, the World Boxing Council, rates Duddy number three in the world at 154lb, despite the fact he has never actually fought at that weight.

His fight against Vanda will contractually be as a 160lb middleweight, where Duddy is ranked number two by the WBO and number seven by the IBF. (Presumably due to his inactivity, the WBA doesn’t have him rated at all.) Although Duddy pointed out that “Matt has never been knocked out; he has a good chin and can punch a bit himself”, and predicted a toe-to-toe battle, Vanda appears to be cut from the same cloth as many other Duddy victims – a willing pug with a decent record who possesses neither the big punch nor the boxing skills to threaten Duddy.

Vanda, at 30, a year older than John, is 39-8 in a 12-year career in which most of his successes occurred in backwater mid-western venues. (Of his last 12 fights, for instance, he is 5-3 in Minnesota and 0-4 elsewhere. The former mark includes a 2007 loss to Anthony Bonsante in a fight for the Minnesota state title – just two months before Duddy stopped Bonstante on a St Patrick’s Day card at the Garden Theatre.)

“I’m just happy to finally be back in the ring, and no better place than Madison Square Garden,” said Duddy, and while his return is being hailed as a “homecoming” of sorts it is more appropriately a return visit. While yesterday’s New York Daily News, for instance, said Duddy “lives in Maspeth, Queens”, that was the address of the apartment Irish Ropes provided him, and, the boxer confirmed yesterday, “right now I’m living out of a suitcase”.

His current residence is a motel in Miami, where Burns is training him for the Vanda fight. Whether he acquires a US domicile to augment the new Derry residence, said Duddy, “depends on my bank balance”.

Assuming all goes well February 21st, he is already being pointed toward a second New York fight later in the year, although, noted Duddy, given his proclivity for facial damage, the only way to guarantee that would be “to have a headgear sewed onto me eyebrows”.

Top Rank has already reserved the Garden’s main arena for the night of June 13th, with middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (who defends against Marco Antonio Rubio in Youngstown, Ohio the same night Duddy fights Vanda) the presumptive main event performer.

Duddy will also perform on the June card, said Arum, who listed three possible opponents. One would be Yuri Foreman, the unbeaten Belarus native, who, like Duddy, commands a fanatical New York fan base. (“That fight,” said Arum, “would sell out the Garden by itself.”) Another alternative, said the promoter, would be Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, the son and namesake of the Mexican legend who won back-to-back decisions over Vanda in his last two outings.

And the third possibility? “Wouldn’t it be spectacular to have Kelly’s next title defence against John in Madison Square Garden?” asked Arum, dollar signs already dancing in his head.

Craig Hamilton, one of Duddy’s new team of advisers (attorney Gary Freedman and author/lawyer Thomas Hauser are the others) claimed on Tuesday “John Duddy can fight anyone, anywhere, and for any amount of money”, but like a lot of other “facts” being bandied about in the wake of the Irish Ropes dust-up, that isn’t entirely accurate.

While the litigation plays itself out in Federal court, Eddie McLoughlin, the Mayo-born Irish Ropes chief has signed off on a once-off deal that allows Duddy to box for another promoter with part of the purse held in escrow. That arrangement would have to be renewed, and probably would be, for a subsequent fight, but any contention that Duddy is a promotional free agent is somewhat premature.

(With respect to L’Affaire Duddy, the charges and countercharges have by now gotten so out of hand that yesterday one New York newspaper made the utterly absurd claim that Duddy, who boxed for Irish Ropes for almost seven years, “never saw a cent” from his former promoters.

Chapter two of this ongoing soap opera is already on the books for next Wednesday, when Irish Ropes has scheduled a press conference of its own. Although the purpose is to announce a March 16th card at the Garden Theatre, probably headlined by Limerick middleweight Andy Lee, you can take it to the bank that John Duddy’s name will come up more than once.