BOXING/IBA Middleweight title: Derryman John Duddy continued his unbeaten march through the middleweight division with a hard-fought victory over former world champion Luis Ramon (Yory Boy) Campas at the Madison Square Garden Theatre on Friday night, but the man-of-the-match may have been his hulking, 6ft 6in cut-man, George Mitchell.

Alarm bells went off in the corner when Campas opened a cut above Duddy's left eye early in the second round and blood poured across his vision.

No sooner had Mitchell staunched that wound than Campas inflicted a near-identical wound, this time above the right eye, in the fourth.

Emboldened by the sight of his opponent's blood, Campas pressed forward in the early going, but Mitchell's impromptu surgery saved the day. By the midpoint of the 12-round bout, Duddy had resumed his customary aggressor's role, but although he rocked Campas with several combinations he was never able to quite finish the job against the crafty, 35-year-old Mexican.

Duddy was wobbled once early in the bout when Campas nailed him with a solid left hook.

"He hurt me there in the second round, but he never hurt me at all after that," said Duddy. "I hit him with everything, but he wouldn't go down," marvelled Duddy. "I really had my hands full because of his experience, but I never felt I was in trouble. I always felt I had enough left to get through the fight."

Sensing the bout had probably gotten away from him, Campas staged a furious, final-round comeback that saw him win the round on all three of the judges' scorecards, but it wasn't enough.

"His experience showed in that last round," said Duddy. "He wouldn't give up. I felt like I had to suck it up, but he caught me with some good body shots and he caught me with some head shots too."

Duddy carried the day on the cards of all three judges - Tom Kaczmarak (whose 117-111 tally seemed a bit over the top), Tom Schreck (116-112) and Billy Costello (115-113). Our own unofficial card concurred with Costello's.

Campas said he was surprised they didn't stop the fight because of the cuts, "but," added Yory Boy, "I was even more surprised by the decision."

Duddy bore the scars of battle afterward, but, he said, "That comes with the sport. Sometimes it doesn't look nice, but you have to stand in there and take it."

Trainer Harry Keitt was quick to praise the work of Mitchell, a disciple of the late cutmaster Al Gavin, in never allowing the cuts to become a factor.

"George Mitchell did an excellent job," said Keitt. "John actually had three cuts - two over his right eye and one over his left - but George just did a wonderful job."

Even while the bout was in progress, said Duddy, he reminded himself he was fighting a man he described as "a legend".

"I can't get over it," he recalled. "I was fighting Yory Boy Campas!"

There was, as is always the case when Duddy fights in New York, a strong Irish composition to the audience for Friday night's "Shamrocks and Sombreros" card. (The multinational flavour of the event meant three national anthems - Mexico's, Ireland's, and the United States' - on the trot before the main event. While the anthems were under way, the Mariachi band hired to escort Campas into the ring showed up instead at the dressing-room of a bewildered Duddy.)

"But the crowd was tremendous," said Duddy, who was spurred on by an evening-long 'Ole! Ole! Ole! Ole!' chant from the Irish contingent. (Though for all we know the Mexicans might have been singing "Ole!" as well; it is, after all, their language.)

The win raised Duddy's mark to 18-0, while Campas fell to 88-9 in a career that began in 1987, when Duddy was eight.

Duddy also earned a fringe championship of sorts in being awarded the lightly regarded IBA title, which would be regarded as a world title in certain parts of Cleveland.

The damage inflicted in the bout in all likelihood earned Duddy an unexpected vacation. His promoters, Irish Ropes, had already lined him up an undercard berth on next month's Wladimir Klitschko-Calvin Brock card at the Garden's main arena, but Duddy's first stop Friday night was St Vincent's Hospital, where 24 stitches were required. It would seem likely he won't even be sparring by November 11th, much less fighting.

Two other Irish boxers also won bouts on Friday night's card.

Arklow light-middleweight James Moore (8-0) earned a second-round technical knockout over Puerto Rican Willie Cruz (3-7), while young Galway middleweight Simon O'Donnell raised his mark to 2-0 when his reluctant Philadelphia opponent Terrance Miller (2-0) was disqualified in the fourth round by referee Mike Ortega on grounds of "refusal to fight".