BOXING/Middleweight bout: Keith Duggansavours the build-up as John Duddy and the New York Irish prepare for tomorrow's big fight

He is close now. Half a decade after slouching through Immigration at JFK airport, John Duddy is almost certainly just one risky step away from his world title fight against Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik. Tonight, he features on the Madison Square Garden undercard for the definitive brawl for the unified heavyweight title between the gargantuan, stoic Russians Wladimir Klitschko and Sultan Ibragimov.

Duddy's bout is not on the television schedule and it is anticipated that his Tunisian opponent, Walid Smichet, will join the previous 23 fighters who were all, sooner or later, subdued by the Derryman's brash, relentless style.

But although he is part of the curtain-raising act, Duddy will, it is generally acknowledged, probably draw as many fans to the Garden as the Russian giants.

Duddy has roused the last remnants of the once-mighty New York Irish army, and outside the desperate legalisation issues, his fights have become the most visible meeting point for the exiles.

It is remarkable how easily and comfortably Duddy seemed to slide into the subconscious of the dwindling Irish-American community scattered across the five boroughs. He has been a bright story in troubled times for the fabled settled Irish of New York.

Here is someone who landed in the city just two years after the shock of the towers and the ash, when the mood was still gloomy and paranoid and the bars were still empty.

Here was another young Irishman caught out by the ever-tightening complexities of US bureaucracy, forced to return to Derry and stew for seven months while his papers were being sorted out.

He might have lost interest or become distracted, but instead he arrived again and declared himself a contender through the combination of well chosen and well executed fights, a lively patter delivered in an undiluted Foyleside accent and the kind of carelessly worn good looks that give him the classic boxer's demeanour from the cocktail age.

Duddy has become an important symbol for the New York Irish, a vivid and thrilling embodiment of the inherited belief that hard work and boldness can transport you fast in this city of soaring buildings.

He was unknown when he arrived to New York five years ago and was treated to the reception of a folk hero during his homecoming bouts in Dublin and Belfast last year. Duddy has a rare combination of graciousness and dauntless confidence and he has accepted this elevation as though deep down he expected it to happen.

"How is fame tough?" he demanded on Wednesday. "Anyone who complains about it doesn't know what they are talking about."

Duddy was leaning against a ring, his hair matted in sweat after a half-hour open workout in the Hard Rock café. All of the fighters on tonight's bout were paraded on this publicity gimmick and for Duddy the show-pony tricks come with the territory.

Looking primed under a baggy white tee-shirt and dark shorts, he moved through his routine, making whistling sounds through the air as he shadow-boxed a couple of rounds before working the pads to the murmured coaxing of his trainer Don Turner and then finally he took up a rope and skipped for six full minutes.

The ring was located in an amphitheatre beneath the main restaurant in the Hard Rock café so diners could watch the action through the glass windows. It was a slightly absurd spectacle, squashy tourists wolfing mega-burgers and sucking down sodas as they contemplated this exhibition of athleticism and grace and fitness.

Jumping rope for six minutes is a more difficult accomplishment than it sounds, particularly when half a dozen flashlights from the television crews are pointing in your direction. But although Duddy is not quite in the same league as Floyd Mayweather, he handles a rope terrifically and he moved through his fast-slow skipping demonstrating a dexterity and sleight of hand that would be alien to most.

He conducted the entire routine with that amused half grin of his and a touch of Derry swagger before cursing aloud at the end when the handles slipped from his hands halfway through his last 30 seconds of full-throttle, blurred rope.

"Aye, well, anyone can look good shadow-boxing and skipping, to be honest," he grinned afterwards.

"But Don has had a great effect on me. I am more relaxed in the ring and I am starting to do more of what I did as an amateur and I am using my fast hands and not being so . . . straightforward in my approach.

"But it's a work in progress and I am looking forward to show what I've been learning."

He glides through these publicity gigs now, blithely shooting back responses to questions he has been asked 1,000 times. If anything, he seems amused by the whole circus even though he is fully co-operative and there are times when he cannot help regarding the TV folk with just a trace of his native Derry catch-yourself-on scepticism. And he becomes fully animated for the first time when he hears someone mischievously suggesting the Brandywell would be a perfect venue for a world title fight.

"Listen, I have been fighting in the Brandywell before and there was never a title involved," he laughs before instantly switching back into ticket-sales mode and declaring his next visit to the Garden to be "another dream come true".

The whole scene is a fare cry from the Ring club in Derry where Duddy learned his trade. In hype and ostentation, it seems much farther removed than the short subway journey to Gleason's, the blue-collar gym nestled in the shadow of Brooklyn Bridge at which he trains.

Gleason's has become a nostalgic metaphor for the roaring days of New York boxing, with its ghosts of former champions. It is not as though the city was exactly glued to the events in the fight game when Duddy arrived. Boxing has diminished inordinately since the epochal days of the Ali era: it is estimated Gleason's was one of dozens flourishing in New York in the mid 1970s; now, there are little more than a handful of dedicated fight gyms.

Duddy made his public take notice, firstly by winning fights and then by good, old-fashioned promotion. He stepped up on stage with Senator John McCain at a legalisation rally at St Barnabas Church in Yonkers, announced his name and got a cheer that evidenced his growing popularity. He became just the second boxer to sell out the intimate Theatre venue at Madison Square Garden when he stopped Shelby Pudwill in the first round on St Patrick's eve in 2006. He sold the place out again for his brave and electrically charged brawl against Luis "Yori Boy" Campos in September of that year, 12 rounds of remorseless punching that left Duddy badly beaten up but still standing and victorious.

That was the fight that attracted a different wattage of attention to the Derryman, and since then he has been on what has seemed like a triumphal march toward a defining title fight. Another convincing win tonight, accompanied by the raucous support Duddy now commands, will present him as the most attractive contender.

"I don't know," he shrugs. "Last year they were talking about me and Jermain Taylor, this year it's Kelly Pavlik. I suppose it is good to have your name being mentioned in both ways. All I can do is win the fight ahead of me and pay people back for the support they have given me. See, once the Irish see someone doing well, they will come out in numbers.

"When I came here, I saw the problems people can have with visas and getting one made my life much easier. There are people in this city with more at stake than me. They have kids, families and jobs here and the fact that just returning home would end all that for them is unfortunate. So I do all I can to support them."

Duddy has worn the Legalise the Irish tee-shirt into the ring at a fight graced by Jake LaMotta, one of the last lions from the era when boxing held a magnetic appeal for the public. The aging middleweight made a visit to see Duddy train in Gleason's and has shown up at several of his fights along with other New York City royalty such as John McEnroe, Tom Wolfe, Joe Frazier and Liam Neeson.

"He does it like I did," said LaMotta last year. "He's my kind of fighter because that's the way I fought. He's a nice man, well spoken. He could do it. He has the talent and he takes a good punch. I like him very much."

On a frenzied night in the King's Hall, Belfast, before Christmas, Duddy showed he could ship a punch. He regards his 10-round brawl against the Battersea veteran Howard Eastman as the trickiest night of his professional life, even if Campos was tougher. It was also a huge learning curve.

Fading into the shadows of the makeshift ring in the Hard Rock café, trainer Turner explained the way in which he believes the Irishman is changing and improving as a boxer.

Lean and distinguished looking, Turner surveyed the cameras surrounding his man with sardonic amusement. "Moving his head," he murmured.

"John could always fight but the problem is that most fighters who can take a punch would rather take it than move their head. But you're gonna last longer if you move your head.

"Howard Eastman has been around and veterans have a way of exploiting weaknesses in guys who are not as good as them. But John had enough to win and that is a blessing right there. Eastman gave Hopkins life and death. John beat him. So that is a big boost right there. And this time round, Smichet is a fairly good fighter but he throws big wild punches. If John do what he supposed to do, he should win."

Across the hall, Duddy smiled and posed and confidently predicted a win, warmly throwing out one-liners.

"What kind of show am I going to put on? A terrible one! What am I supposed to say?

"Aye, give us your card, I'll hould on to it till I'm into me clothes."

"My Space? Nah. I'm a bit computer illiterate. Couldn't be arsed.

"My message to the fans: come early, keep watching and don't leave your seats."

There is an undoubtedly retrospective element to the rise of John Duddy.

It could have been different. Just six years ago, he was burnt out and sick of the demands of his amateur career and had contemplated quitting before Eddie McLoughlin persuaded him to go to the city of hurried and sparkling waters. In New York, he has become the latest, exciting heir to a rich Irish-American boxing tradition.

In Ireland, his feats are redolent of the emotional nights created by Gerry Cooney and Barry McGuigan and Steve Collins. And that Duddy was named after his 17-year-old uncle shot down and killed during the Bloody Sunday atrocity in Derry deepens the mystique, although the fighter has been reserved about the uncle he never knew.

Duddy is part of the teeming New York Irish narrative. But there is something brand new about him too, about his uncomplicated optimism and gratitude.

"I am not finished," Duddy smiles. "I am just beginning.

These may be dangerous words to speak in a city that has heard them a million times. But everyone is listening to the Derryman now and he is close.