PADDY DONOVAN RECALLS the finish only as “a blur”.
He suspects that he might have heard the bell to end the eighth round only for the ruthless instinct innate to any good boxer to override whatever was going on in his frontal lobe. Donovan’s eyes saw his chance to finish Lewis Crocker and his right hand took it; his ears weren’t consulted.
Donovan was scolded in the neutral corner by referee Marcus McDonnell, who had already harshly deducted the Limerick man two points for head clashes which had welded Crocker’s eyes almost shut. When McDonnell turned away and waved off the fight, Donovan tentatively celebrated before it was reiterated to him that he had been disqualified.
In under 20 seconds, confusion turned to apoplexy, which in turn gave way to tears.
Donovan had dominated his breakthrough fight but thrown away his right to challenge for the world title, not to mention his undefeated record.
The sobbing welterweight was first constrained, then comforted, by his corner. His head found a familiar shoulder.
“It’s alright, Paddy!” said his trainer and co-manager, Andy Lee. “This is only the beginning of your journey!”
Referee Marcus McDonnell disqualifies Paddy Donovan for knocking down Lewis Crocker after the bell to end the eighth round. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Lee did well to hide his own rage. He’d had no luck in remonstrating with referee McDonnell that the head clashes were a mutual affair, partly the result of Crocker leaning forward in his defensive guard. He later lambasted McDonnell’s performance to the media from Donovan’s dressing room, but he knew amid the hell breaking loose around them at Belfast’s SSE Arena, his boxer required his composure.
Theirs has been a sacred bond since Donovan’s talents lured Lee into coaching in 2019. Donovan routinely describes his fellow Limerick man as being a father figure, even though he retains a great relationship with his actual dad, Martin.
Former middleweight world champion Lee has been a support beam for Donovan throughout boxing’s peaks and life’s troughs. And there have been more of the latter than most people should be forced to contend with at 26.
In the last six years, Donovan has lost his close friend, Kevin Sheedy, the supremely talented Limerick heavyweight who suggested that Donovan adopt his ‘Real Deal’ moniker shortly before he was murdered in July 2019. In 2021, he lost his first cousin, also named Patrick, and his uncle and best friend, William, both to suicide.
It was his loved ones to whom Donovan retreated after the professional low point of Belfast in March.
He and his wife, Ellie, have since welcomed their fourth child, a first son. They named him William in honour of Donovan’s late uncle. The baby is doing fine now, thankfully, but initial stints in the hospital and the need to support his wife dictated that Donovan didn’t have much time to indulfe in the misery of his DQ defeat to Crocker.
Paddy Donovan embraces his daughter following his DQ defeat in March. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Still, the question would invariably follow him.
“Everywhere I go… I went out in one pub and these two old guys were sitting down and they were like, ‘Did you hear the bell?’” laughs Donovan [14-1, 11KOs]. “I was in the bathroom, taking a piss, and a fella was like, ‘Hey, Donovan, did you hear that bell, did ya?’
“I don’t even remember,” says the southpaw. “It’s not something I’ve been used to. I’m used to people saying to me, ‘Oh, congratulations on your performance. Now, everyone is asking me if I heard the bell. It’s a different feeling. It’s not a nice feeling.
“Listen, I was in the driving seat and emotions can take over. The crowd erupts. You’ve already dropped Lewis Crocker for the first time in his career (Donovan scored a legit knockdown earlier in R8) and you’re about to get a win that will mean you can fight for the world title. Emotions are sky-high.
“I still believe Lewis wasn’t even going to come out for the ninth round if I’m going to be totally honest. I think he would have remained on his stool. But I’ve moved on from it.
“It’s great that I get the chance to right the wrong. I switched off from boxing with family for a bit but I’m switched back on now to win this world championship.”
Switching back on for the rematch has meant leaving the four kids, including newborn son William, back in Limerick with Ellie for weeks on end while training full-time in Dublin with Lee. His parents and siblings, as well as the in-laws, have picked up the slack, for which he’s “extremely grateful”.
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“But it’s not easy to be away from your kids,” Donovan says. “You don’t need to be a boxer to know that. But God willing, the reward will be worth it.”
Away from boxing, Lewis Crocker [21-0, 10KOs], unmarried and not a parent, lives a very different lifestyle to that of his rival.
To paraphrase an infamous interview with golfer Graeme McDowell, Belfast’s ‘Croc’ does a little boxing, he drinks the odd beer from time to time, he likes to hang out, and just kind of be himself, really.
As such, the aftermath of Crocker’s controversial disqualification victory in March — which dictated that he retained his unbeaten record and remained top of the queue to challenge for Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis’ IBF welterweight world title, which the American has since vacated — could not have been in more stark contrast to that experienced by Donovan.
“People were checking up on me, ‘You okay?’ and all. ‘I couldn’t be better!’” Crocker laughs.
“Listen, I take no pride in winning a fight that way. But I knew with the way it ended, we’d get to run it back immediately in a bigger fight.
“I was in Thailand, so I was. Got away for a bit. It was great. I actually lost two phones over there. That helped!
“But I lost my cards as well, actually. I remember sitting on the beach one day and thinking, ‘I can’t believe I just fought in front of about 10,000 people and I don’t actually have a penny on me right now.’
Then, a fella from Belfast saw me in Thailand and he said, ‘Mate, the IBF are after ordering the rematch!’
Crocker rises from the canvas after Donovan's illegal, disqualifying blow. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Crocker’s empty-pocketed holiday was sustained by people who recognised him for his boxing exploits. A couple of lads from New Zealand and two more from Germany helped him out with the use of phones and cash. All four will attend the rematch at Windsor Park this Saturday, when their new friend will settle old business with Donovan for the freed-up world-championship belt.
“Pretty cool,” Crocker smiles.
The hometown fighter is notoriously media-shy and yet in person, Crocker is overtly friendly even to the journalists whose calls he ignores to continue playing PlayStation, or whatever the hell he’s up to.
He holds little back in interview settings, refusing to mask his fallibility. This transparency was exemplified July’s public press conference in Belfast.
The atmosphere at the Europa Hotel was caustic, with a sizeable contingent of Donovan fans renaming Crocker “White Flag Lewis” and “Chinny Bottler” from behind the media section. The Belfast massive returned serve, mostly chanting “Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!”, albeit one idiot took it too far with a discriminatory remark about Donovan’s Traveller heritage. The Limerick man responded by rubbing his eyes, feigning tears.
The boxers themselves were more statesmanlike in their debate. Donovan proposed at least once that Crocker either took a dive at the end of the eighth round or he got knocked out, however illegitimately. He insisted that here was no in between.
Promoter Eddie Hearn, chairing the presser, later put this to Crocker directly. Another boxer would have gotten their back up. Crocker shrugged his shoulders and admitted that Donovan had effectively knocked him out.
Lewis Crocker face to face with Paddy Donovan during a promotional interview for Matchroom. Mark Robinson
Mark Robinson
At a separate point in the presser, Crocker’s trainer, Billy Nelson, hinted that some kind of complication had arisen on fight day which contributed to Crocker’s gun-shy performance.
But when asked to expand upon his coach’s caveat in a sit-down chat afterwards, Crocker replied simply: “Nah, my preparation was brilliant. I can’t make any excuses.
“Just on the night, I felt very flat. It could have been the atmosphere (getting on top of him).”
As of his last conversation with this writer, Donovan, who led the first fight comfortably and had already dropped the swollen-eyed Crocker shortly before his disqualifying blow at the end of the eighth, had watched back the original only “in glimpses”. Crocker, meanwhile, has on several occasions consumed in full what was, for him, a far more excruciating spectacle.
“I need to let my hands go more this time,” says the Belfast man. “But there was a lot of fouls. The head clashes, but also, he landed an elbow on me against the ropes. And if my eye doesn’t swell up, it’s a different fight. And this rematch will be different.
“Listen, I wasn’t rocked at all in that fight,” adds Crocker.
I just couldn’t see. Once I got hit with the elbow and stuff — which wasn’t talked about, and I hate even talking about it — I was shook, mate. He hit me with an uppercut afterwards and I couldn’t see at all.
“I went down (first knockdown in R8) just to, like, recover. I wasn’t stunned or nothing. But if I hadn’t done that, if I didn’t use my experience, then this rematch maybe doesn’t happen because Donovan wouldn’t have rushed in for the finish and gotten disqualified.
“I said that experience would win the first fight… and experience did win the first fight!” Crocker laughs.
A fight billboard outside Belfast's Victoria Shopping Centre. Mark Robinson
Mark Robinson
There will be parallels this Saturday between the task facing Donovan and that which faced Katie Taylor in her trilogy bout with Amanda Serrano at Madison Square Garden in July.
Taylor, too, suffered a points deduction for use of her head in her previous bout with Serrano, whose vision was impaired down the stretch of that second meeting at Cowboys Stadium, Dallas.
Taylor put all complaints to bed with a more cautious, technical effort in New York a couple of months ago, pot-shotting the Puerto Rican from range and removing the referee from the equation altogether.
Donovan, though, while he disputes his guilt in March, is promising nothing of the sort this Saturday.
“You don’t intentionally go in there thinking [I'll use my head],” he says.
“Lewis is a lean-forward fighter. His head is always inside. And obviously, I was wading in and out so it must have sort of looked like I was at fault.
“Fighters don’t intentionally cheat unless they’re losing a fight. For me to be winning a fight and intentionally cheat doesn’t make sense. Hopefully it’s a cleaner fight and hopefully it’s an even better fight. But it’s a fight. Anything can happen.
It’s not like we’re going to church. We’re going to war. It’s a contact sport, it’s a combat sport.
“There’s no point in crying to the referee about things like that.”
Crocker and Donovan's rematch will be the first ever all-Irish world-title fight. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Perhaps this world-title rematch — which will be shown live on DAZN — will follow a roughly similar pattern to the final-eliminator original, but the perception of this bout as a contest is altogether different.
“I’m a big underdog,” says Crocker, who was effectively the joint favourite in March but is the 7/2 outsider for this Saturday’s re-run.
He has the distinction, now, of being one of few unbeaten fighters who knows first-hand that he’s beatable. And Crocker maintains that this new status has altered his psychology in the lead-up to his dream bout at Windsor, where he has supported local football club Linfield since he was a boy.
“It 100% does. I’ve never been a massive underdog. Going into this… it’s not like I’ve nothing to lose because the world title’s on the line — but I’ve everything to gain.
“Everyone’s expecting Paddy to win. And I know I can put in a better performance, for sure. I know I’m much better than what I showed that night. But I always knew Paddy was a very good fighter as well. I don’t know Paddy as a person but I’ll give him credit as a great boxer.”
Donovan and Andy Lee interpret Crocker’s embracing of his underdog role as a sign of weakness, as though he’s trying to alleviate the pressure of having to perform in front of 20,000-odd supporters, most of whom will be expecting a marked improvement from One of their Own.
The inverse question, then, is whether 1/6 favourite Donovan may take Crocker for granted having dealt so soundly with the hometown fighter the first time around, botched finish aside.
Donovan’s contention, however, is that if he were susceptible to complacency, it would have reared its head in March. In his head, Paddy Donovan is the heavy favourite for every fight.
“I always thought I was better than Lewis but I respected what he can do,” says ‘The Real Deal’. “It’s the same in this fight.
“I honestly expect this will be a harder fight for both of us, if I’m going to be totally honest.
“I respect him as a fighter. I’ve been trained that way, not just by Andy but by my dad, to respect my opponents inside and outside of the ring. That’s a part of who I am.
I’m not an arrogant person. I like to speak the facts and keep it as tame as I possibly can. Lewis is a great fighter — I just don’t personally believe he’s on my level.
“That’s me just being totally honest,” Donovan adds. “I think when it comes down to who has the best skill, the best endurance… these little details, I have those above Lewis.
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“His shots didn’t affect me. I barely left the room with a mark. So, punching-wise, I felt like I was the stronger, more mature, more solid puncher. Even though, when you picture Lewis, you picture him as being a bigger banger, in the fight, he was the guy to hit the canvas.
“But whether I can show all of that again in this fight is another question. Or maybe Lewis can up his game and come up to my level. We’ll see.
“I’m not saying he’s a bad fighter — I just think I’m next-level; one of the big boys.”
The man whose arm is raised at the end of Saturday’s first ever all-Irish world-title fight will certainly pull a seat up at that particular table. Whatever about unification bouts against their fellow champions at 147 pounds, money-spinning fights with more recognisable names — Conor Benn, Devin Haney or Ryan Garcia to name but three — will become live possibilities.
Only to the victor will go those spoils, although the prospect of having a first world title wrapped around their waist feels like a sufficiently mind-blowing reward for each challenger at this juncture.
Viewed in isolation, the original bout was a disaster for both of them. Crocker won the bout technically but lost face almost literally. Donovan proved himself worthy of the big leagues but suffered the first red mark on his record.
But in boxing, controversy is a synonym for opportunity. So it has proved six months later for Ireland’s two top-rated welterweights.
“I think everything’s meant to happen for a reason, I always think that,” Crocker says. “If I didn’t go down for the first knockdown because I couldn’t see, then Donovan probably doesn’t hit me after the bell to try to finish me. Then Windsor Park doesn’t happen. Maybe ‘Boots’ (former beltholder Jaron Ennis) doesn’t vacate the title.
“If the stars were ever to align for me, I feel like this could be the moment,” says the hometown hero.
Crocker and Donovan pose after their controversial first bout. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
“If what happened in the first fight hadn’t happened”, adds Donovan, “I mightn’t be fighting Lewis for the world title — I might be fighting some American world champion, which would be a lot harder for me just with travel and being the away fighter in the States.
“What happened has brought us right back to Belfast where it started. The biggest all-Irish fight in history. Two Irish welterweights challenging for the world title. It’s the best thing for the country, even though it wasn’t the best thing for me back in March,” Donovan laughs.
The away fighter’s parting words, then, are aimed not at Crocker but instead at those who will cheer on their preferred man in person on Saturday.
During the original bout at Belfast’s SSE Arena six months ago, several skirmishes broke out in the stands, which, sadly, is typical fare for a fight between rivals around which drink is taken on top of already heightened emotions.
And with nearly 20,000 due to descend on Windsor Park for an all-Irish rematch of even higher stakes, ‘The Real Deal’ implores his and Crocker’s supporters to leave the fisticuffs to those who will be paid for it.
“I hope the fans can be disciplined,” Donovan says. “At the end of the day, it’s me and Lewis putting our lives on the line. The fans are coming for entertainment. I hope they can come to the stadium and not have any arguments between each other.
“The fighting is up to me and Lewis. Sit down, have your beers — or don’t. Enjoy it with your friends or family either way.
“There’s gonna be little kids enjoying these fights so show some respect for other people and just let us do the fighting.
“Bring the roof down, absolutely. Just keep it country.”
***
Having lost loved ones to suicide, Paddy Donovan is an advocate for Pieta House. If you have been affected by any of the issues mentioned in this article, you can reach out for support through the following helplines. These organisations also put people in touch with long-term supports:
Pieta House: 1800 247 247 or text HELP to 51444 – (suicide, self-harm)
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The bell, the blur, and the biggest all-Irish showdown in boxing history
PADDY DONOVAN RECALLS the finish only as “a blur”.
He suspects that he might have heard the bell to end the eighth round only for the ruthless instinct innate to any good boxer to override whatever was going on in his frontal lobe. Donovan’s eyes saw his chance to finish Lewis Crocker and his right hand took it; his ears weren’t consulted.
Donovan was scolded in the neutral corner by referee Marcus McDonnell, who had already harshly deducted the Limerick man two points for head clashes which had welded Crocker’s eyes almost shut. When McDonnell turned away and waved off the fight, Donovan tentatively celebrated before it was reiterated to him that he had been disqualified.
In under 20 seconds, confusion turned to apoplexy, which in turn gave way to tears.
Donovan had dominated his breakthrough fight but thrown away his right to challenge for the world title, not to mention his undefeated record.
The sobbing welterweight was first constrained, then comforted, by his corner. His head found a familiar shoulder.
“It’s alright, Paddy!” said his trainer and co-manager, Andy Lee. “This is only the beginning of your journey!”
Lee did well to hide his own rage. He’d had no luck in remonstrating with referee McDonnell that the head clashes were a mutual affair, partly the result of Crocker leaning forward in his defensive guard. He later lambasted McDonnell’s performance to the media from Donovan’s dressing room, but he knew amid the hell breaking loose around them at Belfast’s SSE Arena, his boxer required his composure.
Theirs has been a sacred bond since Donovan’s talents lured Lee into coaching in 2019. Donovan routinely describes his fellow Limerick man as being a father figure, even though he retains a great relationship with his actual dad, Martin.
Former middleweight world champion Lee has been a support beam for Donovan throughout boxing’s peaks and life’s troughs. And there have been more of the latter than most people should be forced to contend with at 26.
In the last six years, Donovan has lost his close friend, Kevin Sheedy, the supremely talented Limerick heavyweight who suggested that Donovan adopt his ‘Real Deal’ moniker shortly before he was murdered in July 2019. In 2021, he lost his first cousin, also named Patrick, and his uncle and best friend, William, both to suicide.
It was his loved ones to whom Donovan retreated after the professional low point of Belfast in March.
He and his wife, Ellie, have since welcomed their fourth child, a first son. They named him William in honour of Donovan’s late uncle. The baby is doing fine now, thankfully, but initial stints in the hospital and the need to support his wife dictated that Donovan didn’t have much time to indulfe in the misery of his DQ defeat to Crocker.
Still, the question would invariably follow him.
“Everywhere I go… I went out in one pub and these two old guys were sitting down and they were like, ‘Did you hear the bell?’” laughs Donovan [14-1, 11KOs]. “I was in the bathroom, taking a piss, and a fella was like, ‘Hey, Donovan, did you hear that bell, did ya?’
“I don’t even remember,” says the southpaw. “It’s not something I’ve been used to. I’m used to people saying to me, ‘Oh, congratulations on your performance. Now, everyone is asking me if I heard the bell. It’s a different feeling. It’s not a nice feeling.
“Listen, I was in the driving seat and emotions can take over. The crowd erupts. You’ve already dropped Lewis Crocker for the first time in his career (Donovan scored a legit knockdown earlier in R8) and you’re about to get a win that will mean you can fight for the world title. Emotions are sky-high.
“I still believe Lewis wasn’t even going to come out for the ninth round if I’m going to be totally honest. I think he would have remained on his stool. But I’ve moved on from it.
“It’s great that I get the chance to right the wrong. I switched off from boxing with family for a bit but I’m switched back on now to win this world championship.”
Switching back on for the rematch has meant leaving the four kids, including newborn son William, back in Limerick with Ellie for weeks on end while training full-time in Dublin with Lee. His parents and siblings, as well as the in-laws, have picked up the slack, for which he’s “extremely grateful”.
“But it’s not easy to be away from your kids,” Donovan says. “You don’t need to be a boxer to know that. But God willing, the reward will be worth it.”
Away from boxing, Lewis Crocker [21-0, 10KOs], unmarried and not a parent, lives a very different lifestyle to that of his rival.
To paraphrase an infamous interview with golfer Graeme McDowell, Belfast’s ‘Croc’ does a little boxing, he drinks the odd beer from time to time, he likes to hang out, and just kind of be himself, really.
As such, the aftermath of Crocker’s controversial disqualification victory in March — which dictated that he retained his unbeaten record and remained top of the queue to challenge for Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis’ IBF welterweight world title, which the American has since vacated — could not have been in more stark contrast to that experienced by Donovan.
“People were checking up on me, ‘You okay?’ and all. ‘I couldn’t be better!’” Crocker laughs.
“Listen, I take no pride in winning a fight that way. But I knew with the way it ended, we’d get to run it back immediately in a bigger fight.
“I was in Thailand, so I was. Got away for a bit. It was great. I actually lost two phones over there. That helped!
“But I lost my cards as well, actually. I remember sitting on the beach one day and thinking, ‘I can’t believe I just fought in front of about 10,000 people and I don’t actually have a penny on me right now.’
Crocker’s empty-pocketed holiday was sustained by people who recognised him for his boxing exploits. A couple of lads from New Zealand and two more from Germany helped him out with the use of phones and cash. All four will attend the rematch at Windsor Park this Saturday, when their new friend will settle old business with Donovan for the freed-up world-championship belt.
“Pretty cool,” Crocker smiles.
The hometown fighter is notoriously media-shy and yet in person, Crocker is overtly friendly even to the journalists whose calls he ignores to continue playing PlayStation, or whatever the hell he’s up to.
He holds little back in interview settings, refusing to mask his fallibility. This transparency was exemplified July’s public press conference in Belfast.
The atmosphere at the Europa Hotel was caustic, with a sizeable contingent of Donovan fans renaming Crocker “White Flag Lewis” and “Chinny Bottler” from behind the media section. The Belfast massive returned serve, mostly chanting “Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!”, albeit one idiot took it too far with a discriminatory remark about Donovan’s Traveller heritage. The Limerick man responded by rubbing his eyes, feigning tears.
The boxers themselves were more statesmanlike in their debate. Donovan proposed at least once that Crocker either took a dive at the end of the eighth round or he got knocked out, however illegitimately. He insisted that here was no in between.
Promoter Eddie Hearn, chairing the presser, later put this to Crocker directly. Another boxer would have gotten their back up. Crocker shrugged his shoulders and admitted that Donovan had effectively knocked him out.
At a separate point in the presser, Crocker’s trainer, Billy Nelson, hinted that some kind of complication had arisen on fight day which contributed to Crocker’s gun-shy performance.
But when asked to expand upon his coach’s caveat in a sit-down chat afterwards, Crocker replied simply: “Nah, my preparation was brilliant. I can’t make any excuses.
“Just on the night, I felt very flat. It could have been the atmosphere (getting on top of him).”
As of his last conversation with this writer, Donovan, who led the first fight comfortably and had already dropped the swollen-eyed Crocker shortly before his disqualifying blow at the end of the eighth, had watched back the original only “in glimpses”. Crocker, meanwhile, has on several occasions consumed in full what was, for him, a far more excruciating spectacle.
“I need to let my hands go more this time,” says the Belfast man. “But there was a lot of fouls. The head clashes, but also, he landed an elbow on me against the ropes. And if my eye doesn’t swell up, it’s a different fight. And this rematch will be different.
“Listen, I wasn’t rocked at all in that fight,” adds Crocker.
“I went down (first knockdown in R8) just to, like, recover. I wasn’t stunned or nothing. But if I hadn’t done that, if I didn’t use my experience, then this rematch maybe doesn’t happen because Donovan wouldn’t have rushed in for the finish and gotten disqualified.
“I said that experience would win the first fight… and experience did win the first fight!” Crocker laughs.
There will be parallels this Saturday between the task facing Donovan and that which faced Katie Taylor in her trilogy bout with Amanda Serrano at Madison Square Garden in July.
Taylor, too, suffered a points deduction for use of her head in her previous bout with Serrano, whose vision was impaired down the stretch of that second meeting at Cowboys Stadium, Dallas.
Taylor put all complaints to bed with a more cautious, technical effort in New York a couple of months ago, pot-shotting the Puerto Rican from range and removing the referee from the equation altogether.
Donovan, though, while he disputes his guilt in March, is promising nothing of the sort this Saturday.
“You don’t intentionally go in there thinking [I'll use my head],” he says.
“Lewis is a lean-forward fighter. His head is always inside. And obviously, I was wading in and out so it must have sort of looked like I was at fault.
“Fighters don’t intentionally cheat unless they’re losing a fight. For me to be winning a fight and intentionally cheat doesn’t make sense. Hopefully it’s a cleaner fight and hopefully it’s an even better fight. But it’s a fight. Anything can happen.
“There’s no point in crying to the referee about things like that.”
Perhaps this world-title rematch — which will be shown live on DAZN — will follow a roughly similar pattern to the final-eliminator original, but the perception of this bout as a contest is altogether different.
“I’m a big underdog,” says Crocker, who was effectively the joint favourite in March but is the 7/2 outsider for this Saturday’s re-run.
He has the distinction, now, of being one of few unbeaten fighters who knows first-hand that he’s beatable. And Crocker maintains that this new status has altered his psychology in the lead-up to his dream bout at Windsor, where he has supported local football club Linfield since he was a boy.
“It 100% does. I’ve never been a massive underdog. Going into this… it’s not like I’ve nothing to lose because the world title’s on the line — but I’ve everything to gain.
“Everyone’s expecting Paddy to win. And I know I can put in a better performance, for sure. I know I’m much better than what I showed that night. But I always knew Paddy was a very good fighter as well. I don’t know Paddy as a person but I’ll give him credit as a great boxer.”
Donovan and Andy Lee interpret Crocker’s embracing of his underdog role as a sign of weakness, as though he’s trying to alleviate the pressure of having to perform in front of 20,000-odd supporters, most of whom will be expecting a marked improvement from One of their Own.
The inverse question, then, is whether 1/6 favourite Donovan may take Crocker for granted having dealt so soundly with the hometown fighter the first time around, botched finish aside.
Donovan’s contention, however, is that if he were susceptible to complacency, it would have reared its head in March. In his head, Paddy Donovan is the heavy favourite for every fight.
“I always thought I was better than Lewis but I respected what he can do,” says ‘The Real Deal’. “It’s the same in this fight.
“I honestly expect this will be a harder fight for both of us, if I’m going to be totally honest.
“I respect him as a fighter. I’ve been trained that way, not just by Andy but by my dad, to respect my opponents inside and outside of the ring. That’s a part of who I am.
“That’s me just being totally honest,” Donovan adds. “I think when it comes down to who has the best skill, the best endurance… these little details, I have those above Lewis.
“His shots didn’t affect me. I barely left the room with a mark. So, punching-wise, I felt like I was the stronger, more mature, more solid puncher. Even though, when you picture Lewis, you picture him as being a bigger banger, in the fight, he was the guy to hit the canvas.
“But whether I can show all of that again in this fight is another question. Or maybe Lewis can up his game and come up to my level. We’ll see.
“I’m not saying he’s a bad fighter — I just think I’m next-level; one of the big boys.”
The man whose arm is raised at the end of Saturday’s first ever all-Irish world-title fight will certainly pull a seat up at that particular table. Whatever about unification bouts against their fellow champions at 147 pounds, money-spinning fights with more recognisable names — Conor Benn, Devin Haney or Ryan Garcia to name but three — will become live possibilities.
Only to the victor will go those spoils, although the prospect of having a first world title wrapped around their waist feels like a sufficiently mind-blowing reward for each challenger at this juncture.
Viewed in isolation, the original bout was a disaster for both of them. Crocker won the bout technically but lost face almost literally. Donovan proved himself worthy of the big leagues but suffered the first red mark on his record.
But in boxing, controversy is a synonym for opportunity. So it has proved six months later for Ireland’s two top-rated welterweights.
“I think everything’s meant to happen for a reason, I always think that,” Crocker says. “If I didn’t go down for the first knockdown because I couldn’t see, then Donovan probably doesn’t hit me after the bell to try to finish me. Then Windsor Park doesn’t happen. Maybe ‘Boots’ (former beltholder Jaron Ennis) doesn’t vacate the title.
“If the stars were ever to align for me, I feel like this could be the moment,” says the hometown hero.
“If what happened in the first fight hadn’t happened”, adds Donovan, “I mightn’t be fighting Lewis for the world title — I might be fighting some American world champion, which would be a lot harder for me just with travel and being the away fighter in the States.
“What happened has brought us right back to Belfast where it started. The biggest all-Irish fight in history. Two Irish welterweights challenging for the world title. It’s the best thing for the country, even though it wasn’t the best thing for me back in March,” Donovan laughs.
The away fighter’s parting words, then, are aimed not at Crocker but instead at those who will cheer on their preferred man in person on Saturday.
During the original bout at Belfast’s SSE Arena six months ago, several skirmishes broke out in the stands, which, sadly, is typical fare for a fight between rivals around which drink is taken on top of already heightened emotions.
And with nearly 20,000 due to descend on Windsor Park for an all-Irish rematch of even higher stakes, ‘The Real Deal’ implores his and Crocker’s supporters to leave the fisticuffs to those who will be paid for it.
“I hope the fans can be disciplined,” Donovan says. “At the end of the day, it’s me and Lewis putting our lives on the line. The fans are coming for entertainment. I hope they can come to the stadium and not have any arguments between each other.
“The fighting is up to me and Lewis. Sit down, have your beers — or don’t. Enjoy it with your friends or family either way.
“There’s gonna be little kids enjoying these fights so show some respect for other people and just let us do the fighting.
“Bring the roof down, absolutely. Just keep it country.”
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a star will be born Boxing crocker v donovan ii