Paddy Donovan has spoken of his respect for Lewis Crocker as they gradually move toward a rematch.
Crocker won their first bout in March when Donovan was disqualified for a punch that came after the bell, his third infringement on the rules in the bout, but until then the man from Limerick was in control and ahead on the scorecards despite two deductions for fouls earlier in the contest.
The fight was at the Odyssey in Belfast, now known more commonly as the SSE Arena, and a fevered crowd witnessed a career-best display from the Andy Lee-trained Donovan until the end came at the conclusion of the eighth round.
Now the boxers seem set for a September return at the same venue, with Donovan admitting the pain of defeat lingered for a while, although he is ready to go back to work with Lee.
“I’d say in the next few weeks. I think [heavyweight contender] Joseph [Parker] will be back soon,” Donovan said. “Andy’s on holiday right now for another few days. He has invited me back up when he’s back. So probably in the next week, I’m going to go back up, see Andy and get some work back in with him and get the head down for September. It [the desire] really kicks off when I’m around like sporting people, the likes of Andy Lee, Joseph Parker, Ben Whittaker. It feels like if I’m in that environment, I really switch on. I don’t do a thing wrong. But right now, when I’m with family, it’s the summertime. It’s like, I don’t know, is it just me or is it all the fighters? But it’s hard, when you switch off, to switch back on. For me, I find it quite difficult.”
The Crocker rematch has been ordered by the IBF. When Donovan and Crocker fought the first time, it was an eliminator to determine the No. 1 contender for IBF titleholder Jaron Ennis. Ennis subsequently added the WBA belt of Eimantas Stanionis, but Donovan’s team had already lobbied the IBF for the return.
Donovan’s New York-based manager, Keith Sullivan, put the appeal together and the IBF voted for Belfast’s Crocker and Limerick’s Donovan to run it back.
“I know the way the fight ended was not the way it was supposed to,” Donovan said. “But it is what it is. As I said, I have a great team around me. Andy Lee, Keith Sullivan from New York… he filed an amazing 27-page appeal, got some amazing footage of the fight and brought in some Hall-of-Famer referees and judges to analyze the fight and get their opinions and brought it to the IBF. And obviously they voted on the rematch and believed the decision of a disqualification shouldn’t have happened.”
Donovan, at the time, was heartbroken. In fact, he admitted that the depression that followed stayed with him and his instinct was to immediately block any outside noise.
“To happen in the fashion that it happened, that was quite challenging,” he acknowledged. “It was quite different. But I have a great team around me and I just spent some good time with the family and just kept away from the boxing world, really.
“If you were going to consider the performance, I think it was brilliant going to Belfast. It’s a wonderful city to fight in, a hostile crowd. I don't think Crocker won a minute of the eight rounds. I think him and [trainer] Billy [Nelson] underestimated my strength, my skill and they paid big on the night.
“I think they’re going to pay even bigger in the rematch.”
Crocker, having been on vacation immediately after the fight, posted on social media when he got back saying he wanted to fight Donovan again and would willingly participate in the rematch.
“Fair play to Lewis,” Donovan added. “I take my hat off to him. He stepped up and he manned-up and he was happy to fight again. Obviously, when the IBF ordered a fight, there’s not much he can do, but for him to come on social media and say that he wants a rematch, it tells you a lot about the character that he is. So fair play to him, and it’s time to run it back.”
By the time the first fight came around, it was seen by many as a 50/50. Crocker was the ticket-seller and Donovan a prospect who had yet to reveal his true talents.
“Look, as I said, probably the year before that, they would have said 80-20 to him,” Donovan explained. “The way he was going, I think. But when you’re in the ring with me… Andy will tell you, and anyone that’s seen me sparring, they will tell you that I have a knack of taking away the advantages of a good fighter to actually let them express their disadvantages against me.
“I have a great manner of going about things in the ring. I think I’m quite intelligent; very, very smart; and I knew exactly what Lewis was good at and I knew how to take that away from him and I did that exactly from Round 1. I didn’t let him be himself, and that was the game plan.”
Donovan was warned about using the head, coming in close, using his elbows, and he bore the brunt of the cautions from referee Marcus McDonnell. Avoiding any infractions next time will surely be a focal point of the camp that he is due to start.
“When you’re in the fight, you don’t know exactly what’s happening,” Donovan stated. “I obviously felt very, very in control, but again, when you look back, you’d say, ‘Okay, I could have done a few things different. Fair enough.’ But yeah, look, I’m just happy to get the rematch and I feel like Lewis can’t hurt me.
“I don’t think he has the punch that hurts me and I don’t think he can beat me. I have a lot more confidence this time around than I did in the last one. I’m expecting Lewis to be on his best game in the rematch, but I think I feel like I can’t be beaten on that night.”
The 26-year-old is now 14-1 (11 KOs). Lee has always believed in Donovan, so much so that watching Donovan in the amateurs turned Lee from an ex-boxer to a professional trainer.
Nothing about Donovan’s trajectory has changed Lee’s mind, either, and the Crocker fight reinforced to Donovan that he will ultimately be a force at world level.
“I was expressing it in the fight, as you can see… it was like going to Belfast, going to a hostile crowd… It was just really one-way traffic throughout the fight,” Donovan continued. “The whole game plan was bang on. The condition of me was bang on. I think I had everything, implemented everything to a T, so felt like I was levels above on the night. I believe in the buildup, the way I was sparring, I brought in some amazing sparring to Saudi Arabia. I felt like the confidence I had and the ability I had against ex-world champions, I knew that Crocker couldn't live with it. I knew that I was just that little bit too good for him. So it ended, for me, quite tragic, but performance-wise I was quite happy.”
Among those Donovan sparred with beforehand was David Avanesyan, who after one of their sessions told Donovan: “I don’t know your opponent, I don’t know how good he is, but I know he’s not going to beat you.”
That only added to Donovan’s confidence.
As did the addition to the camp of nutritionist George Lockhart. The detail in the preparation added to the boxer’s belief.
“I have gone through my career quite easily. I was really in cruise control,” Donovan said. “I was never really in a fight so far in the 15 fights where I can say that, well the 14 before Crocker, that I was ever in trouble or ever hurt, ever marked, even a black eye, virtually... But that was just off raw talent, the work with Andy.
“Even though I work extremely hard, to become a complete athlete, to become a proper professional athlete, you need to add on all these extra little things. And the things that I’ve done with George as a strength and conditioning coach, never mind the nutrition… I never had nutrition… I just went off the way I was training to take down the weight more than watching my food and things like that. Just raw talent really.
“But, with George, nutrition came into play. The science that I’ve never seen about the sport came into play and the strength and conditioning, the things he was doing with me in the gym, I have never done. And he was so shocked and so in disbelief of things that I’ve actually never done so far. And I’ve never stretched, honestly. Andy can tell you the same thing. I’ve never actually walked into a gym and started stretching, neither before nor after. It’s something I’ve never done.
“I’ve never had an injury, never had absolutely nothing, just went in, put on a pair of gloves, and just got to work. I don’t know, is that just the way I came up along and from the tough family or neighborhood? I’m not sure. But, yeah, just as you push on to become one of the best fighters in the world, you need to add on these little things.”
Lee’s stable has grown rapidly, with the quickfire additions of both Hamzah Sheeraz and Whittaker. Along with Donovan and Parker, it is a formidable set of fighters; not unlike the Kronk Gym at the time Lee joined Emanuel Steward, when he had the likes of Wladimir Klitschko, Kermit Cintron, Tony Harrison and Cornelius Bundrage to work with.
Back then, the former WBO middleweight titleholder would spar with them all, even moving around with heavyweight king Klitschko. Donovan envisages similar situations in his gym.
“The week after that fight, Andy invited me up to watch Ben train in Dublin,” Donovan said.
“So, I brought my wife up with me and the fight [with Crocker] obviously went away at 66.6 kilogram [146.5lbs]. And I seen Ben, I was chatting, a nice guy, and he was warming up and I said, ‘Andy, I'll spar him now.’
“Andy just looks in disbelief. ‘Paddy, he’s a light heavyweight [175lbs], you know, you can’t spar him. He’s very, very strong.’ I was like, ‘Oh, is he that big?’ But yeah, like, I’m sure if we can do this next camp together, which I think we will, I think I will fight around September. Ben should be back in action probably around that time, Joseph also. I think we’ll get some rounds in, yeah. It’s brilliant. I started off with Andy back in 2020, just me and Andy. We did practically everything together, just me and him in the gym, nine o’clock every morning, walking to the gym, just me and him leaving the gym, going to the gym, leaving the gym, going to the gym for years.”
There is a different energy now, but Donovan benefited from a lot of attention from Lee in those formative years. And while Lee knows the journey will extend beyond Crocker, that is the inevitable next stop for him and Donovan, and Paddy will be aiming to put what he believes is an injustice behind him.
He has not seen the first fight yet, but that is not something he ever does anyway.
“I haven’t watched it back once actually,” he said. “I’ve never watched one of my fights back and I don’t plan to, really. I’ve seen the ending, let’s say when I got back on social media. I’ve seen the highlights of people tagging me in bits and pieces like 20- and 30-seconds clips.
“But to look back at a full fight, I’ve never done it in my career so far. Maybe it’ll change. Maybe for this fight Andy might want me to study it a bit more because the rematch has never happened [Donovan has never had one].
“But I’m not really a fan of looking back on myself. I just like to leave it in the past, really.”
The Crocker fight wound up being decided in a game of milliseconds. Instead of being in a position to call out “Boots” Ennis, it is likely back to Belfast for Crocker again.
“Yeah, split-second,” Donovan lamented. “Look, there were two breaks in that round, the eighth round, obviously. The point getting deducted, it took 10, 15 seconds from that round.
“Then you had me dropping Crocker. And I wasn’t really in tune with the time. And obviously the timekeeper didn’t clap for the last 10 seconds, and the ref wasn’t really in the position either to stop the fight from happening. I was throwing a combination to finish Crocker and the crowd was really noisy at that point and I just never heard that final bell, I guess.”
The controversy makes the rematch bigger. Donovan has plenty of respect for Crocker, too, and the next time the bell goes with both boxers in the ring, it will be to start another battle rather than signify a controversial conclusion.