Gavan Casey Reports from Belfast

BOXING CONFOUNDS BODY-LANGUAGE experts more than most sports.

So often, the boxer with the least to say in the build-up is the one who believes in themself the most.

Lewis Crocker’s reserved approach to tonight’s world-title fight with Irish rival Paddy Donovan feels different, however.

Donovan and his team have pondered aloud as to whether Crocker’s low-energy, reverential approach has been indicative of a man beaten before he takes to the ring.

You wouldn’t blame Crocker if he felt this way: during March’s original meeting between the Belfast man and Limerick’s Donovan, he was effectively beaten up before earning a disqualification victory in which he takes no pride.

To see a route to victory for the hometown fighter requires mental gymnastics. But hey, boxers are mental athletes.

It’s this writer’s understanding that Crocker’s lower-key approach to the biggest night of his life has been absolutely deliberate.

Tonight, he’ll walk out in front of 20,000 supporters at Windsor Park, where he has supported his local club Linfield as a boy. When he last made the same walk for a fight with Donovan at Belfast’s SSE Arena, he reckons he became waylaid by the atmosphere to some extent.

Crocker [21-0, 11KOs] was, by his own admission, flat in March’s original meeting. In no way did he resemble the swashbuckling talent to whom Irish boxing fans had grown accustomed for the last eight years. He was gun-shy and second best in virtually every department. We’ll discover tonight the extent to which Donovan was responsible for this.

But Crocker needs to conjure something if he is to essentially avenge his own victory in Belfast tonight. And having given it the big’ne in advance of the first fight and come up short with his performance, he has changed course this week, instead doing everything he can to conserve energy for when it actually matters.

His lethargy during media obligations was a source of curiosity to Donovan, who has been like a puppy pawing a dead bird wondering why it won’t play with him.

Donovan has wondered aloud if he will even face the same Lewis Crocker tonight or some pale imitation who had the dog beaten out of him in March.

At yesterday evening’s ceremonial weigh-in, however, Crocker burst at the seams and exploded to life.

His chest-thumping pageantry — and his labelling of Donovan a “cocky, arrogant c***” — sent the hometown massive into raptures. It was a tonic for the promotion.

One wonders, though, if one more day of zen might have been more advisable for the boxer himself.

Any chance that Donovan might overlook Crocker disappeared last night when the hometown boxer flexed his muscles, bulged his eyes and starting shouting “one more sleep”. Andy Lee would have been secretly delighted to see his boxer slightly annoyed by his opponent for the first time in months.

Donovan’s trainer, a former middleweight world champion, is equally pleased with the selection of Howard Foster as tonight’s referee. Marcus McDonnell was all over the shop during the original clash. He misinterpreted badly the boxers’ head clashes, with Crocker’s lean-forward defensive guard equally culpable in their collisions as Donovan’s raids inside from the southpaw stance.

That McDonnell had already deducted the away fighter two points meant that he had no choice but to disqualify Donovan when he landed the infamous right hand that put Crocker over after the bell to end the eighth round.

Foster, while he’s been too quick with the odd stoppage during his career, is a top official and he’s likely to better understand any potential bangs of the boxers’ heads. Donovan, too, will almost certainly take his head out of line when he seeks to attack Crocker from close range. It’s a straightforward adjustment.

The more pertinent question is to how Crocker and his trainer Billy Nelson can approach this rematch differently.

The consensus is that the home fighter must ‘let his hands go’, but that’s always easier said than done.

It’s a great idea in theory to enter the ring and windmill a fella. In reality, he’s going to clip you back. Donovan has already established that he’s the harder puncher of the pair. It’s unlikely that Crocker’s response to being reminded of those stinging blows will be all-out aggression. If it is, he could get sparked out conclusively.

By the same token, the Belfast man simply has to make a faster start the second time around. Crocker cannot allow the pattern of the first fight to take hold once more. To rip up that pattern is to change the psychology of the fight and, most importantly, that of his cocksure opponent.

At the SSE Arena in March, Crocker didn’t really land any shots in anger until he was fighting for his life off the ropes as Donovan sought the finish. Those thudding shots bounced off Donovan, who says he was in the zone to such an extent that he didn’t even know about them until his brother asked him afterwards if they hurt.

But we still don’t know what will happen if Crocker can catch Donovan flush before the Limerick man has adrenaline coursing through his veins. Chances are, it’ll offer Donovan some pause for thought, at the very least.

Still, it feels there are more ways for Donovan to win this fight than Crocker. For all intents and purposes, we’ve already seen how he can do it.

Andy Lee knows what good looks like. He doesn’t tend to say things unless he means them. And he is insistent that throughout this camp, his boxer has been producing work of a world-champion calibre.

But Lee also knows better than most that things can change when a guy plants his knuckles on your chin.

Windsor Park will erupt one way or the other, with a sizeable Donovan contingent already in town as of yesterday.

Either Belfast or Limerick will finish the night with a new welterweight world champion.