DAN CAMPBELL’S WARNING to his players feels even more prescient in January 2026 than it was when originally delivered in the Detroit Lions’ locker room two years ago.
During the 2024 NFC Championship game — essentially a semi-final to reach the Super Bowl — the Lions blew a 17-point lead over the San Francisco 49ers and denied themselves what would have been the club’s first-ever appearance in the big show.
Campbell, whose player-management skills and unapologetic tactical aggression have made him one of the NFL’s most celebrated leaders of men, told his players afterwards, “This may have been our only shot.”
He elaborated during his post-match press conference: “Do I believe that [it was our only shot]? No. However, I know how hard it is to get here. I am well aware. It’s gonna be twice as hard to get back to this point next year.”
Sure enough, the Lions have fallen only further away since. They have failed to even reach the playoffs this term, currently sitting joint-bottom of the NFC South with a record of 8-8. The buzz around Campbell’s electrifying, ambitious young team has been and gone.
One couldn’t help but wonder if Limerick’s welterweight contender, Paddy Donovan (14-2, 11KOs) had missed his own window as Belfast’s new world champion, Lewis Crocker (22-0, 11KOs), sank to his knees in jubilation at Windsor Park in September.
Contentious as though Donovan’s back-to-back defeats to Crocker were — the first was a disqualification, the second a split decision — they still count as losses and create the wrong kind of momentum in the back of a boxer’s mind.
There’s a case to be made that Donovan won, give or take, 17 of the 20 rounds he shared with Crocker in 2025, but a couple of split-second lapses in discipline were the difference between The Real Deal’s purgatorial record in reality and moving to 16-0 with the world at his feet.
Paddy Donovan (L) prepares a right hand against Lewis Crocker. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Few in Irish boxing would begrudge the gentlemanly Croc a glory that will precede him for the rest of his days. It’s not his fault, nor indeed his problem, that Donovan managed to knock him out after the bell at the SSE Arena in March, or that the Munsterman became so trigger-happy during their rematch at Windsor that he walked onto a left hand which had been signposted from as far back as Sandy Row and left Crocker with another chance.
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Christmas summed up the welterweights’ respective years. Still high on life, Crocker is enjoying a holiday in America with his girlfriend while he awaits news from Eddie Hearn of his first title defence. Donovan, meanwhile, is bollicksed with a virus.
His world-title final eliminator against former light-welterweight champ Liam Paro (27-1, 16KOs) in Australia on 16 January has been cancelled due to his inability to train for most of December, which means that Paro will have sacrificed his own Christmas for nothing unless his team can draft in a suitable replacement.
Donovan said on Thursday that he was “extremely disappointed” to have to pull out. “I was confident of beating Paro,” he added.
“I missed three weeks of training due to illness and my coach, Andy [Lee], took the decision out of my hands. I want to apologise to all the fans in Australia who were looking forward to the fight. I will be back stronger in 2026.
“I wish Paro well and hope that we can fight in the future.”
Trainer Lee added of his decision to pull the plug on Donovan’s trip Down Under: “If we don’t learn from our mistakes then we are doomed to repeat them. I’ve been in this situation before with my other boxers and it never goes well.
There was no way Paddy could train and fight with the viral chest and respiratory infection he had, so I made the decision to pull him out of the fight. Paddy is still one of the best welterweights in the world with a huge future in the sport.
Paddy Donovan of Limerick. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
It’s understood that Donovan is unlikely to return to the ring until March at the earliest, by which point he may be another fight further away from challenging for the title depending on how the land lies with the IBF.
The final eliminator against Paro would have been a legitimate 50-50 and, at only 26, a more patient rebuild may befit Donovan in any case. There can be more than one window, after all. Just ask Donovan’s trainer.
On Crocker’s side of the equation, a voluntary defence of his IBF belt against in-form former opponent, England’s Conah Walker (17-3-1, 8KOs), would make the most sense, with an April date at Windsor Park already mooted.
Wolverhampton’s Walker is better than his record suggests and, having begun to train full-time, he has reeled off a series of impressive stoppage wins, the most recent of which was a stunning upset of former Olympic and World Championship silver medallist Pat McCormack (best known on these shores as the British rival to Ireland’s Tokyo bronze medallist, Aidan Walsh).
Walker came mightily close to shocking Crocker in Birmingham in June 2024, with the Belfast man escaping with a narrow unanimous-decision victory and moving on to his original bout with Donovan, a final eliminator.
A successful defence against Walker would propel Crocker into the frame for a lucrative potential unification fight against a big-name American, but a mandatory defence against Liam Paro — or perhaps even Paddy Donovan by the back-half of 2026 — would also be a live possibility.
Lewis Crocker celebrates his world-title success against Paddy Donovan. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Crocker and Katie Taylor enter 2026 as the only Irish reigning world champions but they could soon be joined — or rejoined, in Taylor’s case — by a third.
It looks likely that Belfast’s super-featherweight star, Anthony Cacace (24-1, 9KOs), will seek to become a two-time world champion by challenging English beltholder Jazza Dickens (36-5, 15KOs) at Dublin’s 3Arena on St Patrick’s Weekend.
Cacace, 36, was previously a world champion at 130 pounds but vacated his strap last January to swerve a mandatory defence and instead take on money-spinning bouts against more recognisable British opponents.
Greatly admired by his peers and considered for so long Irish boxing’s best-kept secret, Cacace has persevered through years of misfortune with injuries, opponent withdrawals and card cancellations to finally gain the transatlantic notoriety that his sheer boxing ability warrants.
In 2024, he dethroned Welsh beltholder Joe Cordina in Saudi Arabia, becoming a world champion on the undercard of Oleksandr Usyk’s first victory over Tyson Fury. Cacace subsequently defeated England’s former featherweight world champs Josh Warrington and Leigh Wood — the former on points, the latter by sensational stoppage in Wood’s hometown of Nottingham — before signing to fight American star Ray Ford. However, a back injury to Cacace put paid to his fight with former champion Ford, who is managed by Brian Peters.
Cacace’s prospective meeting with the 34-year-old Liverpudlian Dickens, who stunned the previously unbeaten Russian Albert Batyrgaziev during his last outing before being upgraded to world-champion status, would appear a close-run thing on paper. The fight is expected to be confirmed by promoter Frank Warren in the coming weeks.
Also firmly in the world-title picture entering 2026 is Monaghan middleweight Aaron McKenna (20-0, 10KOs) who, last April, earned the signature victory of his career to date against former light-middleweight champ Liam Smith, dominating ‘Beefy’ to an extent considered shocking by British observers in particular.
McKenna, though, didn’t fight again last year, his calls for a shot at a middleweight world champion — fully warranted at this stage — falling on deaf ears.
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Aaron McKenna celebrating his victory over Liam Smith At Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last April. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
However, ‘The Silencer’ and his older brother, light-middleweight Stevie McKenna (15-1, 14KOs), are now promotional free agents and last month in New York signed managerial deals with Mike Borao, whose other clients include global light-welterweight star Teofimo Lopez.
Aaron, who is near the top of the queue to challenge for world honours at 160 pounds, will task Borao with brokering that particular deal this year, while Stevie will seek to rebound from his first career defeat to Lee Cutler 13 months ago.
Belfast’s Caoimhín Agyarko (18-0, 7KOs) is also in the mix down at light-middle, where he has been ordered to face American veteran Brandon Adams (26-4, 16KOs) in a final eliminator for the IBF world title.
The winner, should the fight come to pass, will become the mandatory challenger for the belt currently held by Bakhram Murtazaliev (23-0, 17KOs), who faces England’s Josh Kelly (17-1-1, 9KOs) in a defence on the 31st of this month.
Caoimhín Agyarko celebrates his victory over Ishmael Davis at Windsor Park. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Cork’s rising star Callum Walsh (15-0, 11KOs), meanwhile, also has his eye on world-title supremacy in the same division. Walsh’s star-studded team, however, which consists of Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach, UFC president Dana White and highly regarded boxing promoter Tom Loeffler, may bide their time with the 24-year-old Walsh before giving him a crack at some proper hardware.
The Cobh man may kick off the year as soon as 23 January, with former title challenger Carlos Ocampo (38-3, 26KOs) understood to be lined up to face Walsh in Dana White’s first official Zuffa Boxing event in Las Vegas a day before UFC 324.
Light-welterweights Pierce O’Leary (18-0, 10KOs) and Seán McComb (21-2, 6KOs), from Dublin and Belfast respectively, will also fancy their chances of working their way into world-title consideration in the back half of 2026. Each man’s fastest route, however, might be to go through the other, which could yet yield a tasty plotline in an exciting-looking year for Irish professional boxing.
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Several Irish boxers in world-title picture as we enter exciting-looking 2026
DAN CAMPBELL’S WARNING to his players feels even more prescient in January 2026 than it was when originally delivered in the Detroit Lions’ locker room two years ago.
During the 2024 NFC Championship game — essentially a semi-final to reach the Super Bowl — the Lions blew a 17-point lead over the San Francisco 49ers and denied themselves what would have been the club’s first-ever appearance in the big show.
Campbell, whose player-management skills and unapologetic tactical aggression have made him one of the NFL’s most celebrated leaders of men, told his players afterwards, “This may have been our only shot.”
He elaborated during his post-match press conference: “Do I believe that [it was our only shot]? No. However, I know how hard it is to get here. I am well aware. It’s gonna be twice as hard to get back to this point next year.”
Sure enough, the Lions have fallen only further away since. They have failed to even reach the playoffs this term, currently sitting joint-bottom of the NFC South with a record of 8-8. The buzz around Campbell’s electrifying, ambitious young team has been and gone.
One couldn’t help but wonder if Limerick’s welterweight contender, Paddy Donovan (14-2, 11KOs) had missed his own window as Belfast’s new world champion, Lewis Crocker (22-0, 11KOs), sank to his knees in jubilation at Windsor Park in September.
Contentious as though Donovan’s back-to-back defeats to Crocker were — the first was a disqualification, the second a split decision — they still count as losses and create the wrong kind of momentum in the back of a boxer’s mind.
There’s a case to be made that Donovan won, give or take, 17 of the 20 rounds he shared with Crocker in 2025, but a couple of split-second lapses in discipline were the difference between The Real Deal’s purgatorial record in reality and moving to 16-0 with the world at his feet.
Few in Irish boxing would begrudge the gentlemanly Croc a glory that will precede him for the rest of his days. It’s not his fault, nor indeed his problem, that Donovan managed to knock him out after the bell at the SSE Arena in March, or that the Munsterman became so trigger-happy during their rematch at Windsor that he walked onto a left hand which had been signposted from as far back as Sandy Row and left Crocker with another chance.
Christmas summed up the welterweights’ respective years. Still high on life, Crocker is enjoying a holiday in America with his girlfriend while he awaits news from Eddie Hearn of his first title defence. Donovan, meanwhile, is bollicksed with a virus.
His world-title final eliminator against former light-welterweight champ Liam Paro (27-1, 16KOs) in Australia on 16 January has been cancelled due to his inability to train for most of December, which means that Paro will have sacrificed his own Christmas for nothing unless his team can draft in a suitable replacement.
Donovan said on Thursday that he was “extremely disappointed” to have to pull out. “I was confident of beating Paro,” he added.
“I missed three weeks of training due to illness and my coach, Andy [Lee], took the decision out of my hands. I want to apologise to all the fans in Australia who were looking forward to the fight. I will be back stronger in 2026.
“I wish Paro well and hope that we can fight in the future.”
Trainer Lee added of his decision to pull the plug on Donovan’s trip Down Under: “If we don’t learn from our mistakes then we are doomed to repeat them. I’ve been in this situation before with my other boxers and it never goes well.
It’s understood that Donovan is unlikely to return to the ring until March at the earliest, by which point he may be another fight further away from challenging for the title depending on how the land lies with the IBF.
The final eliminator against Paro would have been a legitimate 50-50 and, at only 26, a more patient rebuild may befit Donovan in any case. There can be more than one window, after all. Just ask Donovan’s trainer.
On Crocker’s side of the equation, a voluntary defence of his IBF belt against in-form former opponent, England’s Conah Walker (17-3-1, 8KOs), would make the most sense, with an April date at Windsor Park already mooted.
Wolverhampton’s Walker is better than his record suggests and, having begun to train full-time, he has reeled off a series of impressive stoppage wins, the most recent of which was a stunning upset of former Olympic and World Championship silver medallist Pat McCormack (best known on these shores as the British rival to Ireland’s Tokyo bronze medallist, Aidan Walsh).
Walker came mightily close to shocking Crocker in Birmingham in June 2024, with the Belfast man escaping with a narrow unanimous-decision victory and moving on to his original bout with Donovan, a final eliminator.
A successful defence against Walker would propel Crocker into the frame for a lucrative potential unification fight against a big-name American, but a mandatory defence against Liam Paro — or perhaps even Paddy Donovan by the back-half of 2026 — would also be a live possibility.
Crocker and Katie Taylor enter 2026 as the only Irish reigning world champions but they could soon be joined — or rejoined, in Taylor’s case — by a third.
It looks likely that Belfast’s super-featherweight star, Anthony Cacace (24-1, 9KOs), will seek to become a two-time world champion by challenging English beltholder Jazza Dickens (36-5, 15KOs) at Dublin’s 3Arena on St Patrick’s Weekend.
Cacace, 36, was previously a world champion at 130 pounds but vacated his strap last January to swerve a mandatory defence and instead take on money-spinning bouts against more recognisable British opponents.
Greatly admired by his peers and considered for so long Irish boxing’s best-kept secret, Cacace has persevered through years of misfortune with injuries, opponent withdrawals and card cancellations to finally gain the transatlantic notoriety that his sheer boxing ability warrants.
In 2024, he dethroned Welsh beltholder Joe Cordina in Saudi Arabia, becoming a world champion on the undercard of Oleksandr Usyk’s first victory over Tyson Fury. Cacace subsequently defeated England’s former featherweight world champs Josh Warrington and Leigh Wood — the former on points, the latter by sensational stoppage in Wood’s hometown of Nottingham — before signing to fight American star Ray Ford. However, a back injury to Cacace put paid to his fight with former champion Ford, who is managed by Brian Peters.
Cacace’s prospective meeting with the 34-year-old Liverpudlian Dickens, who stunned the previously unbeaten Russian Albert Batyrgaziev during his last outing before being upgraded to world-champion status, would appear a close-run thing on paper. The fight is expected to be confirmed by promoter Frank Warren in the coming weeks.
Also firmly in the world-title picture entering 2026 is Monaghan middleweight Aaron McKenna (20-0, 10KOs) who, last April, earned the signature victory of his career to date against former light-middleweight champ Liam Smith, dominating ‘Beefy’ to an extent considered shocking by British observers in particular.
McKenna, though, didn’t fight again last year, his calls for a shot at a middleweight world champion — fully warranted at this stage — falling on deaf ears.
However, ‘The Silencer’ and his older brother, light-middleweight Stevie McKenna (15-1, 14KOs), are now promotional free agents and last month in New York signed managerial deals with Mike Borao, whose other clients include global light-welterweight star Teofimo Lopez.
Aaron, who is near the top of the queue to challenge for world honours at 160 pounds, will task Borao with brokering that particular deal this year, while Stevie will seek to rebound from his first career defeat to Lee Cutler 13 months ago.
Belfast’s Caoimhín Agyarko (18-0, 7KOs) is also in the mix down at light-middle, where he has been ordered to face American veteran Brandon Adams (26-4, 16KOs) in a final eliminator for the IBF world title.
The winner, should the fight come to pass, will become the mandatory challenger for the belt currently held by Bakhram Murtazaliev (23-0, 17KOs), who faces England’s Josh Kelly (17-1-1, 9KOs) in a defence on the 31st of this month.
Cork’s rising star Callum Walsh (15-0, 11KOs), meanwhile, also has his eye on world-title supremacy in the same division. Walsh’s star-studded team, however, which consists of Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach, UFC president Dana White and highly regarded boxing promoter Tom Loeffler, may bide their time with the 24-year-old Walsh before giving him a crack at some proper hardware.
The Cobh man may kick off the year as soon as 23 January, with former title challenger Carlos Ocampo (38-3, 26KOs) understood to be lined up to face Walsh in Dana White’s first official Zuffa Boxing event in Las Vegas a day before UFC 324.
Light-welterweights Pierce O’Leary (18-0, 10KOs) and Seán McComb (21-2, 6KOs), from Dublin and Belfast respectively, will also fancy their chances of working their way into world-title consideration in the back half of 2026. Each man’s fastest route, however, might be to go through the other, which could yet yield a tasty plotline in an exciting-looking year for Irish professional boxing.
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