Limerick southpaw Andy Lee looks poised to fulfil his trainer Emanuel Steward's prediction and become a real contender in 2008.

WHEN ANDY Lee approached John Duddy at a pre-fight press conference at Madison Square Garden a fortnight ago, it was to wish him well in his upcoming bout against Walid Smichet.

The sentiment expressed was genuine, but there were some mind games afoot as well. Mindful that he might face the Derry middleweight somewhere down the line, Lee wore a thick jumper to the New York luncheon, a subtle reminder that while Duddy might be tall as middleweights go, Lee was an even bigger one.

"I figured it wouldn't hurt to plant the seed," Lee chuckled the next morning. "Just one more thing for him to think about."

A fight between the two undefeated Irishmen was far from Duddy's mind two weeks ago. That he had been added to the February 23rd Wladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov card was a tribute to his loyal New York fan base. Over the past several years, Duddy had demonstrated that between his enthusiastic (some would say deluded) supporters among the Irish emigrant and Irish-American communities, his presence alone could be counted on to boost the gate by around 5,000 tickets.

Already in possession of a signed contract (the final execution of which took place just half an hour before he stepped into the ring that night) that would pay him $1,450,000 for challenging world champion Kelly Pavlik in the same building on June 7th, Duddy had only to beat Smichet, a hand-picked opponent who had never before fought outside Canada and was coming off a loss in his last fight.

Although Lee seemed to be closing the gap, up until that fateful weekend Duddy's career had been widely considered to be the more advanced of the two. At 28, he was five years Lee's senior, and had been a professional three years longer. Duddy was already performing in televised main events before Lee even first fought as a professional.

Lee had performed in relative obscurity, boxing on undercards around the globe while sparring with Emanuel Steward's other gifted charges, including world champions Klitschko, Jermain Taylor, and Kermit Cintron.

Who could have guessed how dramatically the fortunes of both boxers would be altered by that weekend's events? Duddy won his bout against Smichet, all right, but the result was so unconvincing even his adoring New York fans booed a narrow majority decision many ringside observers described as "a gift". Smichet, the ungainly Tunisian bum, had swung from the heels and still managed to connect with an alarming number of punches.

After 10 rounds, Duddy had been badly cut below both eyelids, and had a nasty gash below his left eye as well. "A bad win is better than a good loss," Duddy sighed. "I'm very disappointed in myself. I know I'm a better fighter than this, but boxing is an unforgiving sport."

The June title shot against Pavlik also evaporated with that evening's events, and not just because his injuries will keep Duddy out of the ring for at least six months.

"Duddy looked dreadful," said Top Rank's Bob Arum, who promotes the world champion. "I don't know what happened. He may have been over-anxious because the Pavlik fight had already been agreed to, and the cuts didn't help, but what I saw didn't measure up to a world-class fighter. This guy (Smichet) wasn't the fastest fighter in the world, but he was able to hit Duddy with everything he threw."

Out of action until autumn, Duddy may have permanently lost his place in the queue.

"I told (Duddy's) people that before Kelly could even consider fighting him, I'd have to see him fight and beat a credible opponent first," said Arum. "Right now I couldn't even talk about a Pavlik-Duddy fight with a straight face."

Before the evening was out, the decision had also been taken to move Pavlik's June defence elsewhere. Without the potential of Duddy's Big Apple fan base at Madison Square Garden it made sense to move to Atlantic City for the June 7th HBO date.

Two mornings later, with Duddy still licking his wounds, Steward and Lee met Arum and hammered out the essentials of a deal that will guarantee Lee three 2008 fights under the Top Rank banner - the third of which could prove to be the title bout that had just slipped from Duddy's grasp.

Lee's first fight for Arum will be in a televised bout underneath Pavlik's June 7th defence, but, warned the promoter, "the level of competition is really going to be a big step up for Andy". As of now, Pavlik's choice of opponents has been narrowed to two: Mexican Marco Antonio Rubio (41-4-1 and rated number four by the WBC, number five by the WBO), and Welshman Gary Lockett, 31 years of age, 30-1 as a pro, and somewhat unaccountably rated number one by the WBO.

HBO is understood to prefer Lockett. Although relatively unknown to US viewers, he is trained by Enzo Calzaghe, a circumstance the network hopes might help pave the way for a subsequent meeting between Pavlik and Enzo's son Joe, the world super-middleweight champion who will face Bernard Hopkins in Las Vegas next month.

"We should know by the weekend," said Arum, "but if Pavlik winds up fighting Lockett, then we'd want Lee to fight Rubio. That would be a hard fight for Lee, but if Andy is even three-quarters as good as Emanuel claims he is, then he's going to be a superstar anyway."

The 37-year-old Rubio would indeed be a step up for Lee, but he's hardly invincible. Four years ago we saw him get stretched in one round by Ghanaian Kofi Jantuah on the Hopkins-Oscar De La Hoya card in Las Vegas, and in 2006 he dropped back-to-back decisions to Ugandan Kassim Ouma in Vegas and Ukrainian Zaurbek Baysangurpy in Kiev. He has won seven in a row since, all in Mexico and against relatively undistinguished opposition.

The arrangement with Top Rank will inevitably alter the fight-a-month timetable Steward had plotted out for Lee this year, and one casualty could be the Limerick fight Brian Peters had planned for Lee this May.

"We have no problem with the March 21st ESPN fight (against Brian Vera at the Mohegan Sun, Lee's first US televised main event), or with him fighting in Detroit in April, but May is really too close to the June 7th date, and we wouldn't want to jeopardise that," said Arum.

Assuming Lee is able to handle Rubio, his next Top Rank outing would be on a September HBO "Boxing After Dark" card, "and after that, who knows?"

By late 2008 Pavlik may have moved to the super-middleweight ranks, leaving both the WBC and WBO belts up for grabs, and if Pavlik still holds the middleweight titles, southpaw Lee may well by then be deemed a credible challenger. Steward's prediction that Lee would be fighting for a world title before the year is out now looks a real possibility. But it's difficult not to feel a touch of sympathy for Duddy who, like the rest of us, is due to follow Lee's 2008 campaign as a spectator.