Northern Irish middleweight John Duddy has played down suggestions that he is heading for a showdown with Mexican contender Julio Cesar Chavez Jr early next year.
New York-based Duddy hits the comeback trail this Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. He is bidding to bounce back from the first defeat of his professional career last April against unheralded American Billy Lyell.
Duddy, 30, fights US-based Mexican Jorge 'Michi' Munoz on the undercard of a double world championship bill featuring WBO light featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez against Rogers Mtagwa and WBA featherweight titleholder Yuriorkis Gamboa versus Whyber Garcia.
The card is being promoted by Top Rank, whose founder and president Bob Arum is known to like both Duddy and his crowd-pulling capabilities.
With Chavez Jr fighting on the undercard of the clash between Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao, two of Arum's biggest stars, in Las Vegas next month, the American promoter is planning a clash between the Mexican and Northern Irish contenders.
He has provisionally booked both fighters for separate fights in Mexico before Christmas with a view to putting them in the ring together next March.
'Crowd favourite'
"If Chavez gets by November 14, the plan is for each of them to fight other opponents December 19 in Cancun, and then to fight back here in New York around St Patrick's (March 17)," Arum said.
"Duddy is coming back from a defeat, but we expect him to be featured in some major fights down the road. He is a very big crowd favourite in this area."
Duddy, though, has seen one world title shot slip from his grasp when a proposed challenge to middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, another of Arum's top-drawer fighters, fell by the wayside after he sustained a bad cut around his eye in a supposed tune-up fight against Walid Smichet in February 2008.
Pavlik instead fought Welshman Gary Lockett and Duddy has learned not to look too far ahead as far as his boxing career is concerned.
"Julio Cesar Chavez Jr is a fantastic fighter, he's got an unbelievable amount of fans and if it happens it happens," Duddy said. "But for me I'm just focused on October 10.
"I'm firmly focused on getting the job done at the Garden again."
© Press Association