Gavan Casey

THE SYMPATHETIC HEAD tilts from September onwards were hard to stomach.

Paddy Donovan felt as though he should have been a world champion only to return to Limerick from Belfast empty-handed, a second debatable defeat to Lewis Crocker on his record.

The majority of passersby, not to mention the people in Donovan’s life, felt the same. Crocker’s split-decision victory had been contentious if not scandalous: the hometown fighter had twice knocked down Donovan — the first more so an unfortunate loss of balance, the second a moment of lost concentration.

In the space between those flashpoints in the third and fifth rounds, Donovan’s mind flashed back to his original bout with Crocker six months earlier, in which he had dominated Crocker only to fall foul of referee Marcus McDonnell.

Once Howard Foster awarded Crocker the first knockdown in the rematch — ‘Croc’ landed a cuffing left hand behind Donovan’s ear as the away fighter lost his footing — ‘The Real Deal’ felt enough déja vu that he began to overcompensate, which caused him to walk onto a thunderous Crocker left hand.

“Probably cost me a world title, really”, Donovan sighs.

The Munster man [14-2, 11KOs] will tonight seek to get back on the horse in a difficult-looking world-title eliminator against Ukrainian Karen Chukhadzhian [26-3, 14KOs] in Mannheim, Germany.

He and trainer Andy Lee have long since moved past Donovan’s rematch defeat to Crocker, but not without significant feedback — which went both ways.

“The fact was, maybe from round 7 on, I said to Andy, ‘Will I go for the knockout?’” Donovan recalls. “But Andy just said, ‘Paddy, just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re winning the rounds.’

“Everyone at ringside, all the analysts, everyone had me up. Andy was probably hearing that as well, people’s [unofficial] scores, y’know? Tony Bellew and people commentating on the fight had me well up. So we just stayed doing the one thing that we thought was enough.

“But I spoke with Andy a few times after the fight and I said, ‘Andy, if it’s back again, we should have just gone for the knockout, really.’ I had it in me.

“Round 10 or 11, I remember feeling like it was only round 3 or 4. I was so fresh. I didn’t even get tired in the fight, which is not a good thing. I think in a world-title fight you have to put everything on the line, you have to push, especially being away from home, and I think especially with the two knockdowns. So I have regrets of not going for it more, maybe.”

Donovan, though, insists that he still feels like an undefeated fighter, irrespective of what his record says. “And even though I don’t have the world-title strap right now”, he adds, “I still feel like Lewis is not a better fighter than me, y’know what I mean? I feel like I should be a world champion.

“I should be looking at fighting Devin Haney. I should be looking at fighting Conor Benn. I should be looking at fighting Ryan Garcia right now, but I’m not,” Donovan smiles. “I’m heading to Germany to fight Karen Chukhadzhian.

“Boxing is a funny place. It can take you to your highest points and it can take you to your lowest points. I’ve felt the highs and I’ve felt the lows, and I don’t like the lows.”

Donovan is full of compliments for tonight’s opponent, Chukhadzhian, two of whose defeats have arrived on points to pound-for-pound operator Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis. Chukhadzhian’s only other loss came in his second professional bout in Ukraine in 2015, and he’s ranked highly by all of the sanctioning bodies with good reason.

A superb technical boxer not lacking in power, Chukhadzian is, to Donovan’s mind, a greater test of his own credentials than the more rugged Crocker, against whom Donovan won the majority of their 20 shared rounds in the minds of most boxing observers.

There is greater jeopardy, too, in Donovan’s mind.

“This is where there’s a lot on the line: from being undefeated 12 months ago, I could be on the verge of another loss.

“This fight could go unnoticed, really, but it’s an extremely important fight for my career in that kind of way. It’s obviously not built up like the fights with Lewis or, let’s just say an English fighter or an American fighter.

“But the fact is, it’s a Ukrainian in Germany, which is going a little bit unnoticed really.

“Like, let’s just say for the people who don’t really know about this fight: if I win it, then they’ll hear about it, and then it’s ‘guess who’s back’, y’know? Guess who’s back fighting for the IBF title, and guess who’s after beating a world-class fighter?”

That Donovan (6/4) is the slight underdog against the more seasoned Chukhadzhian (4/7) is a fair read. Irrespective of the debate around his rematch defeat to Crocker, the Limerick man underperformed in that world-title fight and has no momentum to speak of, having not boxed since that night at Windsor Park eight months ago.

And while Chukhadzhian himself has not boxed since last October, he enters tonight’s eliminator on the back of two dominant wins against decent opposition.

Donovan, though, is content with his positioning as outsider, which very nearly worked out in his favour on the only other occasion in which it was the case.

“It’s funny because Lewis [Crocker] was favourite going into our first fight, but realistically I dominated every single round. It was one-way traffic until the disqualification. Then, in the second fight, I was 7-to-1 favourite, and Lewis became the winner in that fight.

“So I don’t really pay any heed to the odds,” Donovan laughs. “People can have their say and they can have their favourites, but once you get in the ring, nobody knows anything about anything until you’re getting punched.

“So we’ll see how it goes. But I think the place I’m in right now, no matter what he throws at me in Germany, I’m going to get the win.”

Donovan, who was forced to pull out of an eliminator against Liam Paro in Australia earlier this year due to injury (Paro will instead challenge Crocker for the world title in Brisbane next month), has had eight months to reframe not only his boxing career, but his personal life.

It’s been a rare opportunity for the 27-year-old to spend longer spells at home with his wife, Ellie, and their four children. Donovan describes himself as “greedy” for having previously spent so long away at training camps, and yet he acknowledges that his family have done “extremely well” financially from his and Ellie’s shared sacrifice.

As world-title success, though, would be more than the cherry on top. Donovan’s driving motivation is to turn the sympathetic head tilts into grins and high fives. And that process begins again in Mannheim from around 9pm Irish time, live on DAZN.

“I want to give it to people more than myself,” Donovan says. “I think that’s it, deep down.

“I think maybe the people around me deserve it more than I really deserve it.

“People have invested a lot of time in me. My family has invested a lot of time in me. My coach has invested a lot of time in me, and obviously I’ve invested a lot of time in myself.

“But I think Irish boxing just needs another great world champion, y’know what I mean?”