A FORTNIGHT OUT from their all-Irish world-title eliminator, Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan continue to match each other at every turn.
For every picture of his shredded physique posted to Instagram by one of these welterweight protagonists, another soon follows from the opponent.
Belfast man Crocker [20-0, 11KOs], who will be the hometown fighter in two Saturday’s time (live on DAZN), recently made it known that he has been sparring with Scotland’s former undisputed light-welterweight champion Josh Taylor, a ring technician whose style bears a resemblance to that of Donovan.
A day or so later, Limerick native Donovan [14-0, 11KOs] posted a picture alongside one of his own sparring partners, welterweight world-title challenger David Avanesyan, whose brick-fisted aggression is a tidy fit for the challenge awaiting Donovan at the SSE Arena.
Both boxers are at pains to point out that they have never been more prepared to beat the other. They’re probably both right.
The rare beauty to Crocker versus Donovan, aside from it being the most significant Irish boxing derby since God knows when, is that whenever one of the boxers explains why they’re going to win, you’re inclined to believe them.
Crocker will try to impress upon you that his experience will be key: that he’s had six more professional fights and boxed nearly 40 more rounds than Donovan; that he’s gone the 10-round distance three times, whereas Donovan hasn’t yet been past the ninth.
In their upcoming 12-rounder, ‘Croc’ believes he can roll ‘The Real Deal’ into bloodied water.
Jaysus, you find yourself thinking, it all makes sense.
Donovan, then, insists that Crocker has never fought an opponent of his calibre, irrespective of his rounds banked. If he struggled to overcome the more rugged 13-2(5KOs) Englishman Conah Walker in his most recent outing last June, how is he going to contend with Donovan’s slicker footwork and sharper shooting from each hip?
By God, Paddy, it’s a good question.
When Eddie Hearn, who promotes both boxers, mentioned Crocker’s “heavy hands” at the launch presser in Belfast’s Europa Hotel last month, even Donovan’s trainer Andy Lee became animated, the former middleweight world champion speaking with more conviction about his charge’s talents than he ever did of his own.
Lee, who once possessed one of the world’s most deadly right fist, said: “We know [Crocker] is a puncher but if you ask anyone who’s sparred with Paddy, or anyone who’s shared the ring with him, you’ll see how hard he hits. And I would argue that he’s the bigger puncher of the two.”
As Crocker’s home fans fired vitriol from the floor, drowning out the ‘waheeyyys’ of the sizeable pro-Donovan contingent, Lee raised the mic again and put his foot to the floor.
“I hold the pads for everybody. You know the type of boxers I’ve worked with,” he said, referring to the likes of heavyweight duo Tyson Fury and Joe Parker as well as Donegal’s former middleweight challenger Jason Quigley. “This man (Donovan), pound for pound, is the biggest puncher out of the lot of them.
I’ve seen this fight play out a thousand times in my head. Lewis is not good at distributing pressure. He fights in bursts but is powerful and explosive when he does. I can see the fight playing out in my head: Paddy Donovan timing him, whether it be to the body or the head. I’m telling you, no one knows how powerful this man is when he punches. It’s phenomenal power.
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙡 ✨@PaddyDonovan23 steps up against Lewis Ritson on #TaylorCatterall2 on May 25 🔥 #DonovanRitson pic.twitter.com/anCIwhjHjE
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) March 28, 2024
Billy Nelson, who fine-tunes Crocker’s extensive talents in Scotland, insisted that Lee was getting carried away.
“There’s absolutely no way Paddy Donovan punches anywhere near — even remotely close to — as hard as Lewis Crocker,” he said.
“Yes, Paddy is a skilled fighter”, Nelson added, then nodding to his own, “but this is a very skilled one. One hundred amateur fights and only lost how many? 10?
This is no disrespect to the opposition but the difference between the two fighters in my opinion is that Lewis Crocker is the more rounded professional. He’s fought better opposition. Paddy’s never fought anybody in the top 30 and on 1 March, he’s going to find out what a fully-fledged [welterweight is like].
Those square brackets are this writer’s best guess as to how Nelson finished his sentence: his words roused the pro-Crocker crowd to the point that they drowned him out like the final line of Amhrán na bhFiann before an All-Ireland final.
WHAT A FINISH 🤯🤯🤯
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) January 27, 2024
Lewis Crocker does the business in round five 🐊#CrockerFelix | @DAZNBoxing pic.twitter.com/PfAPuz6bSE
Promoter Hearn was enraptured at the top table even before the boxers had their turn, blown away by the hundreds of fans who had turned up for a Wednesday-lunchtime presser. The tribalism behind the barrier fence reminded him of the Belfast presser for Carl Frampton’s 2016 grudge match with Scott Quigg.
Sitting in the hotel restaurant at a comfortable remove from the bedlam — and, crucially, from the athletes and their teams — Hearn spoke freely about each. When asked for a gun-to-your-head winner, though, he found himself in a similar sweat to the rest of us.
“Paddy’s one of those guys where, when he’s 100% and his strength and conditioning is bang-on, he’s a different fighter than when it’s not,” Hearn said. “Like, when we did that show last January (in Belfast) and he was boxing at three or four weeks’ notice, you saw the difference between that and when he fought on Katie’s cards — like when he knocked that kid out from Birmingham (Danny Ball). He’s a real sharp-shooter.
“Whereas I think Crocker’s always ready and I think he’s a brilliant, brilliant fighter. I think that maybe Crocker goes in the slight favourite but I think when Paddy gets it right, he’s very difficult to beat.
“And I think Lewis got hit a lot against Conah Walker but I don’t think he really respected his power. I thought, frankly, he just thought he could just walk him down. I don’t think he thinks he can do that with Paddy — Paddy punches sharper and harder than people think when he’s on. He kind of makes you miss and ‘Bang!’
“But if Lewis makes the pace hot, can he get to him down the home straight?”
We haven’t a clue, Eddie, truth be told.
And seemingly neither do the oddsmakers: Crocker and Donovan have been locked as joint favourites — each 10/11 with most bookies — since their fight was announced in December. It’s an anomaly in any two-way sporting contest, not to mind in boxing where the term ’50-50 fight’ is scarcely ever literal.
‘Croc’ and ‘The Real Deal’ themselves, then, have been left with only words and gimmicks to gain a fractional psychological edge over the other.
And as he prepares to box out of the away corner for the first time in his 14-fight professional career, Donovan has taken to the baddy role in Belfast like a prime Willem Dafoe.
When he landed upstairs in the Europa for the launch presser with trainer Lee and crew in tow, he initially appeared to be dressed as a cowboy of some description. An outlaw, maybe, given he’s at large on enemy territory?
Nope. It was a bloody Crocodile Hunter costume, albeit the late Steve Irwin might have considered the hat a creative flourish.
“I think Andy ordered it on Amazon,” Donovan laughed. And while he wouldn’t admit it, he seemed mildly disappointed that the Croc with whom he will wrestle on 1 March didn’t take the bait.
Donovan’s approach to his first staredown with Crocker, then, was far less divilish. It was plain sinister.
“I’ve heard a lot of stories about you,” Donovan snarled at his adversary. “I’ve heard a lot of things about you around Belfast.”
The Limerick man proceeded to make claims about Crocker’s personal finances, which Crocker shrugged off: “That was the past… Look where I am now, mate.”
Donovan continued to pull on the thread until Crocker laughed in his face and turned to the heaving crowd, raising his arms and flexing his biceps. The chorus of ‘There’s Only One Lewis Crocker’ drowned out Donovan’s parting words: “That’s it: run away.”
Contributing mightily to the charged atmosphere, though, was the horde of Donovan fans up from Limerick. Or might a few of them even have been locals?
The subtext to Donovan’s below-the-belt insinuation during their staredown was that Crocker’s home city might not be behind him in its entirety. Who had told him the ‘stories’?
That the men of March’s main event are as astute as they are charismatic has added fascinating strands to their mental warfare. Between fights, Crocker traditionally prefers the white light of his PlayStation to the spotlight but he’s a natural-born public speaker when contractually obliged, or on the seldom occasions he answers the phone to a journalist of his own volition.
When he’s ‘on’, the 28-year-old Crocker can sound like a Masters student in whatever the hell you’re talking about. And when it comes to this particular domestic rivalry, he puts forward the thesis that because of his own Protestant upbringing in South Belfast, Limerick’s Donovan has recently begun to lean into his support of Celtic Football Club on social media to curry favour with Belfast Catholics ahead of fight night.
But if indeed Donovan has done so as a cynical ploy, Crocker believes he needs a lesson from recent history as to why it will prove futile.
“Look at the way [Carl] Frampton had it,” Crocker says. “I think in Paddy’s head, he thinks it’s ‘North’ v ‘South’. But it’s not: it’s Belfast v Limerick. All corners of this city are going to get behind me.
“I think in his head, that’s going to change but that’s not the case at all.
Like, I boxed for Ireland. I was proud to represent the Irish flag and I would say that I’m from Northern Ireland. I boxed in Holy Trinity which is in West Belfast. My best mates are Catholic. In his head, he sees different. But he’ll be in for a surprise.
When those comments are relayed to Donovan, he teases Crocker’s Rangers fandom but in the same breath dismisses the notion that he is trying to sew political division into a sport which has always excelled in keeping that wolf from the gym door.
Instead, Donovan insists that come fight night, the loyalties of the 7,000-strong crowd at the SSE Arena will be split down the middle, or close enough to it, organically.
“Boxing fans in Ireland support the best fighters,” Donovan says. “I’m sure there are fans from both sides of Belfast who will be supporting Lewis and want to see him win – there’s no problem with that.
“It’s the same with me: some down south want to see me win and some probably want to see me lose,” he laughs. “That’s the joy of boxing.
“The buzz is electric and to be able to match Lewis in Belfast would be an extreme honour.
“It’s like, if he came to Limerick or Clare (Donovan grew up in Ennis initially) to fight me in one of those counties, he would be outdone by a lot. For me to come to Belfast and hold my own crowd-wise — which doesn’t make a difference when you’re in there fighting — would still be a great feeling.”
Donovan makes a pertinent point: the noise of the fans will be irrelevant when the boxers’ ears are ringing. The only battle line that will truly matter come 10pm on Saturday 1 March will be the 30 feet between the two combatants as their names are cheered and jeered from outside the ropes.
Whatever your parochial loyalty or personal persuasion, there is little debating the fact that this is the biggest all-Irish prizefight in living memory: two exciting, unbeaten, potentially world-level operators in a glamour division, each of them trending upwards, squaring off for the right to fight for a world title which will most likely sit vacant.
Indeed, Crocker and Donovan are possibly good enough that even the loser won’t face a particularly scenic route back to contention: Eddie Hearn’s tentative plan for that unlucky individual is to have them face a top-15 contender and, if successful, re-enter the frame almost immediately.
But Matchroom have christened this event presciently: Crocker versus Donovan is now as much a ‘Point of Pride’ as it is about the opportunities that lie beyond their title eliminator. From March onwards, their names will be interwoven in Irish boxing’s tapestry, one stitched in green and the other in red. Those stakes are high enough.
“Paddy is going to announce himself on the world stage,” says Donovan’s trainer Andy Lee. “He’s ready to step up now. It’s going to be a celebration.
“People are expecting a very hard fight and it will be in a certain way, because we’re going into the cauldron of Belfast, we’re the away fighter and all of that stuff. But in terms of the boxing, I just think Paddy Donovan is too good. He’s a generational talent and you’ll see that on 1 March.”
“This is going to be a cracking fight”, says Crocker’s coach Billy Nelson, “but Paddy Donovan will get stopped by Lewis Crocker, 100%.”
‘The Real Deal’ Donovan argues that “if the two of us are at our best, I’ll be a better fighter.
“Crocker is a great fighter: he’s strong, he comes forward — but you can get that in any country or any gym.
“I think what I possess is a lot different to any other fighter and, as Andy says, he’s underestimating how much I can punch.
“I don’t believe Lewis is a world-class fighter. There are levels and I believe I’m much better than Lewis. I’ve had 14 fights and I’m in the top 10 in the world; it took him 20 fights to get there.”
Crocker, naturally enough, has a different interpretation of what separates him from Donovan on paper.
“Paddy’s a great boxer, there’s no denying that,” he says. “He’s got a great amateur pedigree. He’s got a great coach in Andy Lee.
“I don’t really know Paddy but we’re going to get to know each other well on 1 March,” laughs ‘Croc’.
“Everything has worked out perfectly and it’s the biggest Irish-Irish fight I can remember — but that’s something that I’m used to as well from fighting [Tyrone] McKenna. This is new territory for Paddy but it’s my sixth headline fight and we’ll see how he reacts here.
“I’ve ticked a lot of boxes in fights that Paddy hasn’t yet and, unfortunately for him, he’s going to have to come up against me to tick those boxes. It’s going to be the toughest night of his life.”
Well, they can’t all be right…
Great article, short and sweet.
Pulling on my Puma Kings and kicking the hole off a kid in a pair of pink boots is one of the great pleasures of the sporting life.
Never throw out a pair of football boots, someday you’ll take them in your hands and remember what it was like to be young and not give a damn about anything more ninety minutes.
Puma Kings are the best. Always loved wearing them.
I wore Black adidas copa mundials as a kid, my dad got them for me as i was the only sports child. They were the best boots ever…if my old man saw me wearing anything but black boots he’d call me a Nancy boy.
I was about to reply that’s mine we’re Prada , then I noticed it was about football boots! Well I wore Gola back in the day when I played women’s soccer!! :-)
Sums up soccer very nicely indeed. Glad the proper football is back today. Earnestly hope it too doesn’t go the way of soccer.
Care to expand?
Well you’re a real barrel of laughs