Boxing: Perhaps John Duddy felt sorry for the paying customers at Boston's Park Plaza Castle, who had spent most of Saturday evening waiting in beer lines to watch a succession of execrably mismatched undercard bouts against a series of hapless opponents.

Or maybe he just felt badly for the three round-card girls who'd been engaged for the evening, only to remain unadmired due to the undercard opponents' inability to get past the first round.

The Derry middleweight did not, in any case, seem the least embarrassed at having been extended the distance for just the second time in his professional career.

"I probably learned more from this fight than I did in my first 14," said Duddy after cruising to a unanimous decision over a game Haitian named Julio Jean in the main event of the New England Ringside Promotions' "Super Brawl" card at the stately old Back Bay venue.

Duddy's stock in trade has become the early knockout, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn't going to happen on this night against an opponent the Irish boxer accurately described as "durable, slick, and crafty".

Recognising that he was likely to be in it for the long haul, Duddy abandoned his hell-bent-for-leather attack in favour of a more methodical approach, which in turn sent Jean into a counter-punching mode.

It was not an unreasonable tactic on the opponent's part, and one that might have served him better had he been able to punch even a little. As it was, Jean was able to connect with left uppercuts on several occasions, but the blows had little effect on Duddy. Jean, who had stopped just three of his previous 14 foes, simply didn't have the power to put so much as a dent in Duddy.

Two ringside judges scored the bout a complete whitewash at 100-90, for the Irishman, while a third charitably gave Jean a round in scoring it 99-91.

Duddy is now 15-0, while Jean fell to 7-7-1 with the loss.

With both competitors coming in over the limit, the bout will go into the books as a super-middleweight fight.

That Duddy-Jean lasted as long as it did was undoubtedly of some comfort to the promoters of the "Super Brawl" card in Boston: four of the five prelims had ended in less than a round, and the one that didn't saw the opponent quit after two.

"It was a fantastic experience," said Duddy of what was effectively a tune-up for next month's main event performance at the Madison Square Garden Theatre in New York, where he has been matched against 21-2-1 North Dakotan Shelby Pudwill atop Irish Ropes' "Shamrock Express" card on St Patrick's Eve.