BOXING NEWS:JOHN DUDDY is accustomed to performing before large crowds. He has been a headliner at the Madison Square Garden Theatre, the Prudential Centre in Newark and the King's Hall in Belfast, and he has appeared in conjunction with several world title fights at Madison Square Garden on evenings where the attendance topped 10,000.

But when he steps into the ring against Michael Medina at Cowboys Stadium in Texas tonight, the Derry middleweight will be fighting before more people than have watched any three of his 27 professional bouts. (And a lot more of them will be Mexicans than Irishmen.)

Duddy will be facing his third consecutive Mexican-born opponent when he kicks off the televised portion of tonight’s massive Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey card. NFL owner Jerry Jones, who has partnered Top Rank’s Bob Arum to promote the extravaganza, had initially configured the state-of-the-art football stadium to accommodate 35,000, but demand led him to re-set the bar, and there could be nearly 50,000 eyewitnesses, half a million more watching on US PPV, and a worldwide audience that could number in the millions.

Duddy (30), has learned better than to make predictions, but from what he has been able to glean from the limited videotape available of tonight’s opponent he’s predicting “lots of fireworks”.

“We’re both exciting fighters,” said Duddy. “From the fights I’ve seen it looks like Michael Medina likes to come forward, and I’m not much of a boxer myself, so I expect it will be action-packed.”

Medina, with a professional CV of 22-1-2, looks, at least on paper, to be a significant upgrade on Juan Astorga and Michi Munoz, the previous opponents selected for Duddy’s rehabilitative process since last year’s upset loss to Billy Lyell.

Astorga, in fact, appeared absolutely terrified when he fought Duddy in January, and between Duddy’s punches and his own hyperventilation succumbed in less than two minutes.

Although all three were born in Mexico, Astorga and Munoz are domiciled in Kansas. Since Medina was born in Nuevo Leon, resides in Monterrey and all but two of his fights have taken place in Mexico, it was instructive to note he speaks better English than either of the other US-based Mexicans.

When Arum trotted out the supporting cast for an undercard-only press conference this week, Medina demonstrated his versatility when he addressed his audience in accent-less English and Spanish. (Although, come to think of it, we’re only assuming his Spanish was accent-less.) In fact, said one Texan, “I could understand Medina a lot better than I could understand Duddy.”

“English was actually my first language,” explained Medina. “I was born in Mexico, but my family moved to California when I was very small, and I went to school there until I was 12, when we moved back to Mexico.”

Medina was 18 when he fought a draw with Miguel Galvan in the pro debut for both contestants. His other draw, against Axel Rodrigo Solis the following year, was avenged when he knocked Solis out in a rematch two weeks later. His loss came against easily his most formidable opponent, undefeated former US Olympian Vanes Martirosyan, two years ago.