It was the fighting equivalent of being catfished. Paddy Donovan, dressed for the occasion and full of hope, had spent months communicating back and forth with his date only to realise on the night that the date, Lewis Crocker, was not everything he claimed to be. Instead, and somewhat jarringly, he was the opposite of what he claimed to be. He was passive rather than aggressive. He was content to wait, not take the lead. He was, all in all, nothing like the person with whom Donovan first communicated back in March.
On that occasion, Donovan was able to say and get away with pretty much anything he wanted. He was, to be clear, the one in control. The vocal one. The dominant one.
In fact, the first time these two welterweights boxed in Belfast, Donovan was so dominant that his biggest threat was simply getting carried away and finishing matters prematurely by unfair means. The only way he could lose, it seemed, was if he continued to foul Crocker and ended up getting disqualified.
That, as it turned out, was not only the fear, but the reality. In round eight, after dropping Crocker and appearing on the brink of victory, Donovan somehow managed to get his timing all wrong and hit Crocker after the bell to end the round. That led to Donovan being disqualified by the referee, Marcus McDonnell, and him ending the night in tears, like the date who assumed everything was going swimmingly just to find out at its conclusion that their feelings were not reciprocated.
The only question now was whether Donovan had done enough – flirting; begging – to warrant a second date and a chance to put things right. Thankfully, he had. With a little help from the IBF and Jaron Ennis (the IBF welterweight champion moving up), there was an incentive greater than just the controversy of the first fight to persuade both Donovan and Crocker to renew acquaintances last night in Belfast. There was a bigger venue this time, too – the 15,000-capacity Windsor Park – which meant that more people would be able to watch the fight and judge how it unfolded.
For good reason, a fair number of these people would have expected to witness a continuation of what happened in fight one, yet Crocker, to their surprise, had other ideas. Now the biggest threat to Paddy Donovan beating the Belfast man was not his own over-exuberance and inability to control himself but instead something external, harder to control or predict. Now the biggest threat to Paddy Donovan winning rounds and ultimately the fight was Lewis Crocker’s deadly left hook.
This shot, never really a feature the first time around, was something Crocker kept from his date until it was required, stopping just short of hiding it behind his back. Occasionally, to show he was serious, he would flash it before his eyes and wave it around, but only when Donovan got too close, too presumptuous, and too forward did Crocker properly bring it out and cause Donovan to back off, think again. Sometimes, he really meant it. In rounds three and five, for instance, Crocker showed Donovan his left hand with so much feeling that Donovan was sent to the canvas – the first time off-balance, the second time hurt – and lost two rounds he was otherwise dominating. For six rounds Crocker, when he threw the shot, couldn’t miss with it. It was too quick; too unexpected. Donovan thought he knew him; he thought he had seen everything Crocker had to offer the first time they met. But nothing could prepare him for this.
It wasn’t just the shot, either. It was the setup of the shot. It was the patience he demonstrated when preparing the shot. It was the waiting; the tempting; the inactivity. This, in short, was not the Lewis Crocker anybody had been expecting.
In fact, Crocker’s performance last night in Belfast could easily be compared to the performance George Groves produced against James DeGale back in 2011. That was another fight in which two rivals who apparently knew each other inside out – having been gym mates and fought as amateurs – discovered on the night that maturity and the ability to adjust are often key components of any great rivalry.
Back then, in 2011, Groves was perceived to be the puncher; the brawler; the come-forward fighter with no alternative but to be aggressive. DeGale, on the other hand, was the southpaw and viewed as the more technically refined counter-puncher who would, like a matador, wait for Groves and pick him apart on the way in.
On the night, though, these roles were soon reversed. On the night it was Groves who decided to go on the retreat and it was DeGale who was forced by Groves into fighting a way that was wholly unfamiliar to him: coming forward, leading off, trying to be aggressive. What this meant was that DeGale all of a sudden had a moving target rather than a large, open one, as well as fewer opportunities to land. It also meant that Groves drew the sting from DeGale’s sporadic attacks, planted seeds of doubt in his mind early, and was granted the rare luxury of counter-punching the counter-puncher.
This Groves did to good effect that night in May, winning a close decision after 12 nip-and-tuck rounds. As the verdict was read out to him, all he could hear, louder than even the cheers of the London crowd, were the words DeGale said before the fight: “What are you going to do, stand off and box me? You can’t do that, Ugly Kid. You can’t do that.”
It was as much an admission of fear as a threat and Groves, no fool, read it as precisely that, then acted on it. It was only on the night itself that DeGale realised what was happening, by which time, for him, it was too late. It was only on the night he looked across the ring at a fighter he had known since they were both boys and understood he didn’t really know him at all.
In the case of Donovan and Crocker, their relationship was considerably shorter than the one involving Groves and DeGale, but no less passionate. Even if the feeling didn’t run as deep, there was arguably more at stake between Donovan and Crocker, with an IBF world title on the line and so much controversy following them into the rematch. This showed, too, both in the atmosphere produced in Belfast last night and in the performances of both men. Together, they rose to the occasion, albeit at different times and in different ways. For six rounds, Crocker, the underdog, confounded not only the doubters, but anybody with a preconceived notion of how the rematch would play out, by boxing completely against type and instinct – a la Groves against DeGale – and finding the sort of success he was unable to find in fight one. He did so by letting Donovan take centre ring and lead and then at various points using Donovan’s comfort and complacency against him by launching the odd right hand or left hook from a set stance. Being set, of course, meant Crocker could generate a great deal of power in these single shots, something evident as early as round two when he cracked Donovan with a short right hand as Donovan became reckless. It was then even more evident in the next round when a left hook dropped Donovan as he approached Crocker with his feet all wrong and “fell” into his own attack. Crocker, there waiting, was more than happy to punish him.
In the fourth there were additional warning signs for the favourite. “Hands up! Hands up!” shouted his coach Andy Lee, who could sense what we all sensed. Closer than any of us, Lee could see that Donovan was on course to win rounds so long as he didn’t ignore or forget the possibility of something coming back the other way and turning the round on its head.
When sharp and focused, Donovan was a joy to behold. His jab was quicker and better than Crocker’s and the back hand with which he followed the jab was placed expertly high and low and was slung with notable spite towards Crocker’s midsection time and time again. Often, in fact, there was a Joe Calzaghe-like intensity and sprightliness to Donovan, especially in the second half of the fight, by which point he had become wary of Crocker’s threat and was effectively fighting around it.
The problem, though, was that one shot – that element of surprise. In round five it happened again, and again it was Crocker’s left hand which did the damage. This time it was a much bigger shot, too. This time Donovan found himself in no man’s land – hands down, chin high – and Crocker duly capitalised with the wildest of left hooks. It was, you might say, a shot he had been saving up, waiting for.
That was the issue for Donovan. Here he was in the ring with a man who was content to wait, preserve his energy, and spot his opportunities. He could win rounds against this man, and did, but staying out of harm’s way while trying to box in an unfamiliar style was easier said than done. Suddenly, because of Crocker switching up on him, Donovan was having to be uncharacteristically aggressive but lacked the mindset of someone who knows what it is to be aggressive yet vigilant at the same time.
Still, as tricky as it was, this didn’t mean Donovan was incapable of adjusting to Crocker’s adjustments. In fact, as the fight progressed, that is exactly what started to happen. Momentum shifted; patterns changed. After six rounds, Billy Nelson, Crocker’s coach, told his man, “Let’s change the fight around”, then added: “We’re ahead.” That command led to Crocker flirting with the idea of returning to his default factory settings in the seventh round, but by then the shock factor of his approach had somewhat faded. Now Donovan was able to see what Crocker had planned for him and prepare for it. “Am I winning?” Donovan asked Lee in the corner before round eight.
In truth, it was hard to know. He was certainly outworking Crocker through most of the rounds, yet it was Crocker who often produced that one memorable moment to perhaps sway an uncertain judge.
Then again, by round eight it was quite clear that the same shots that had once unsettled Donovan early – including a rash right hand in the eighth – were now, to Donovan, puddles he could see coming and step around. At times, he even waited for him, let them come, and then countered Crocker’s swings with counterpunches of his own, restoring us, if briefly, to the kind of fight he and we all expected going in.
In the final few rounds that’s kind of what we got. We had Crocker swinging with everything he had – fuelled by desperation or at least some uncertainty – and we had Donovan becoming more and more confident and settling into what can only be described as a groove. It seemed, to all who watched it, a fight of two halves, just as we can now call it a rivalry of two halves. It seemed, to most, as though Donovan had done enough, with his work rate, to get over the line and snatch the belt.
The judges, however – two of them anyway – disagreed. While one scored it to Donovan by a score of 115-111, the other two were more impressed by Crocker’s economy and had him a winner by scores of 114-112 and 114-113. It was, when announced, not only confirmation of Crocker’s career-best win but confirmation that two knockdowns – that is, two single left hooks – were the difference between Donovan, now 14-2 (11 KOs), leaving the ring a world champion and leaving the ring in tears – again.
“A lot of people gave me stick after the first fight [against Paddy Donovan],” Crocker, 22-0 (11 KOs), said. “Well tomorrow, when you do your wee [social media] post, make sure you write: Lewis Crocker world f****** champion.”
To play that role there will be no trickery or deception involved; Lewis Crocker doesn’t need to pretend to be something he is not. He contains multitudes, after all. He is a boxer. He is a brawler. He is now a world champion.
