John Duddy Loses His Unbeaten Record - What Now?

In a surprising twist to the rising success of our Irish boxers, John Duddy lost to the unheralded Billy Lyell (18-7-0) last night by split decision.
The fight was in reality meant to be a formality for Duddy, who has fought a much higher calibre of opponent in the past, but Duddy proved once again that you cannot take any challenge lightly in boxing.
His performance has been described as "sluggish" and watching the fight it was evident that Duddy's defensive flaws are far from fixed under his new trainer Pat Burns. The lack of defense meant that the cuts that have made things so difficult for him in the past opened up once more to further hinder him.
Whatever went wrong for Duddy in this fight - and let's face it, it could be put down to any number of factors, perhaps he underestimated his opponent, it could be down to the fact that he has recently changed trainers and is trying to change his come forward brawling style, he may even be finding it hard to get motivated for a fight such as this when it was less than a year ago that he was contemplating a world title eliminator fight, it could be a result of all of the above - Duddy now needs to regroup and figure out exactly what he wants out of his boxing career.
Does he want to go back to the drawing board at age 29 to try to salvage something from what once looked like such a promising career, or does he want to call it quits, he never struck me as the type of boxer who would be satisfied with journeyman status, and with the current strength of the European middleweight scene with guys like Khoren Gevorgyan, Andy Lee, Matthew Macklin, among others, relocating back to Ireland to try his luck at the EBU strap will not be an easy feat either. If he is indeed commited to getting back on track, he will need to get to grips with his new style, use his jab (which he often forgets), and incorporate some lateral movement and defense into his fight game. The dissapointing thing is that we know Duddy has these assets but for some reason he leaves them behind when he enters the ring.
This is just one defeat and may well be just a slip up, but looking back on previous performances against Smichet, Eastman and Campas, there were signs that Duddy may just lack what is needed to cut it at the highest level.
One thing I am happy about is that it was Billy Lyell in the ring with Duddy last night instead of another Youngstown, Ohio boxer, Kelly Pavlik, because if Duddy had shown such a lack of defense against the Ghost that he did against Lyell, the outcome could have been disastrous.
If Duddy can come back from this and prove to us that he is still capable of those glimmers of brilliance we have seen from him in the past, I will the first one cheering for him but I fear that perhaps this leopard is just not capable of changing his spots.