It says it on Boxrec.com, so it must be true:
LEWIS CROCKER W DQ 8 PADDY DONOVAN
No matter how many times Paddy Donovan logs into Boxrec.com and sees those words written in that order, he still cannot believe what is recorded in black and white. He sees his name, and he sees the name of his last opponent, yet what comes between those two names fails to correlate with what he experienced in the ring with Lewis Crocker. He remembers getting disqualified against Crocker in March – for punching after the bell – but not once did he feel as though he was losing that fight, or about to lose it. The same is true of their rematch, in September, which was spared the controversy of fight one, but was still a fight Donovan felt he won only to be told at its conclusion that he would be going home with a second professional loss.
That those two defeats both came against the same opponent is maybe what hurts the most. No defeat is ever pleasant, of course, but the thought of losing twice to the same man brings a finality which, for the boxer on the receiving end, is a bitter pill to swallow. After all, whenever there is the chance of a rematch, there is always possibility and hope. In this instance, too, many, including Donovan, felt that the rematch with Crocker at Windsor Park was the perfect opportunity for him to right the perceived wrong of the first fight and get back the win that should have been his in March.
Instead, Donovan realized early on that the rematch was not all about him. In fact, Crocker, by switching his strategy, not only showed new elements to his game, but would have had Donovan wondering what happened to the Crocker of fight one. Suddenly now, as a result of Crocker’s shrewd adjustments, Donovan was confronted by different looks, different problems, and a new kind of opponent. Suddenly Donovan was now involved in a tight fight in Belfast, Crocker’s hometown, and the IBF welterweight title, which many presumed would be his, seemed out of reach.
In truth, few had seen it coming. The expectation going in was that Donovan would avenge his first professional loss and that these burgeoning rivals would then perhaps have a third fight – the rubber match – either immediately or sometime in the future. But no, that wasn’t to be. Now, whether it’s Donovan or Crocker who consult Boxrec.com for confirmation, they both see the same thing:
LEWIS CROCKER W DQ 8 PADDY DONOVAN
LEWIS CROCKER W SD 12 PADDY DONOVAN
“He probably beat Crocker in both fights and came away with two losses,” said Donovan’s coach, Andy Lee, one month on. “But the second one was extremely close. I felt that Paddy did enough to win it, or at least get a draw, but the fight was in Crocker’s home town – does that become a factor? I don’t know.
“Credit where it’s due, they [Crocker’s team] had a good game plan and Crocker fought a good, disciplined fight. He took his time, waited for his moments, and landed good shots when he could. But I thought the first knockdown [in round three] was the result of him [Crocker] pulling Paddy down and not a proper knockdown. Then Paddy is kind of chasing the fight [after that].
“It’s just the way these things unfold sometimes. Should I have told him to go for a knockout before the last round? You think about these things constantly and you think about what you could have done differently. That’s the same for both of us. It’s a learning experience for us both. These are just lessons.”
When Andy Lee recalls what went on that night in Belfast he does so with a palpable sense of disbelief. Even now, four weeks later, he is still not entirely sure how his boxer came away from two fights with Lewis Crocker without a win to his name.
Yet Lee also knows how boxing works. He knows it is often a matter of moments and indeed a matter of luck. He accepts that Donovan, for whatever reason, was never meant to finish those two fights against Crocker with his hand raised. Why? Only the passing of time can reveal that.
“It’s all about learning now,” said Lee, a former WBO middleweight champion from Limerick, Ireland. “Paddy needs these kinds of tests. He has still had only 16 [professional] fights and is only 26 years of age. Here he is fighting for a world title at a big stadium. It was a huge occasion.”
Like answers, the importance of these lessons will only reveal themselves once enough time has passed and Donovan has achieved something greater in his career. Until then, he will feel the same as any other fighter who suffers a professional defeat. Worse, he will feel that unique pain of the fighter who has lost to the same man – a countryman, no less – twice in a row.
“It is a blow and he’s devastated,” said Lee. “He’s really hurting from it. He’s taking it the same way I would take a loss. Some guys can take a loss and just get up the next day and shake it off, but Paddy has taken it hard.
“He will come back and he can now show us how much he cares and how much he wants to be a champion.”
If looking for inspiration, Donovan could do a lot worse than look to a former gym mate and sparring partner of his coach: George Groves. Groves, after all, found himself in a similar position back in 2014, when a much-hyped rematch against Carl Froch ended with him being cruelly knocked out by a right hand in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium.
The defeat itself was painful enough for Groves, but what made it worse, from Groves’ point of view, was both the manner of it and the fact it had been manufactured by a man he couldn’t stand. Worse even than that, it was the pair’s second fight – a rematch – and therefore Groves, twice a loser, no longer had a reason to complain or a nemesis to chase. He had, some felt, been hard done by in their first fight, when stopped controversially in November 2013, but there could be no questioning the empathic conclusion to the rematch six months later. So final was it, in fact, Groves had no case for a third fight and had to accept that his career record would never include a “W” against a man of whom he was still convinced he had the beating. Interestingly, too, this belief never wavered.
“I feel I can look at it for what it is now,” Groves told me before his “comeback” fight against Christopher Rebrasse, four months after the second Froch defeat. “He hit me with the best shot in his career and it’s embarrassing and annoying for me that I’m the idiot he hit with it. If you asked him to do it again, though, he’d never be able to. The stars wouldn’t align and that shoulder wouldn't be open when I try to hook.
“Ultimately, you drill everything in the gym, but to a certain extent you’re always winging it in there. I did the wrong thing at the wrong time. I still like to think I was unlucky.”
Naturally, there was some denial; maybe even some necessary delusion. However, there was also a refreshing kind of humility to Groves around that time. A humility some might say was knocked into him by a Froch right hand; a humility some might say Groves required to now fulfil his dream of becoming a world champion.
“It’s that reality check that keeps you grounded,” he said of the defeat. “Grounded in the sense that you ain’t anything special really. You’re not the greatest fighter. You’re not the cleverest guy out there. You just might have been clever for that one moment in time. That doesn’t mean you won’t be again. But you can’t always be three steps ahead of everyone else.”
Grounded, and aware now of his fragility, Groves soldiered on. He beat Rebrasse four months after losing to Froch – this time at Wembley Arena rather than at Wembley Stadium – and he found a strange comfort in going back to square one and, in his words, “smashing up a foreigner who can't speak English in a half-empty arena.”
From there, Groves continued to grow – both in confidence and in stature. Froch, of course, was never far from his mind, but Groves’ obsession with the Nottingham man – which had even led to him calling for a third fight after outpointing Rebrasse – was tempered somewhat by the fact that Froch soon announced his retirement from the sport.
This allowed Groves to emancipate himself from that rivalry and focus now on becoming a world champion. With Froch gone, he could now consign that experience to the past and take only lessons from it.
“I’m certainly capable of having another massive fight again,” he said. “And, when that time comes, I’ll have a lot more experience and be able to take a lot more of it in my stride. I took a lot of it in my stride with Froch, but they were all brand-new experiences; dealing with that much spotlight, that many media interviews and that much attention to detail. Also managing your own affairs on that scale. It’s massive.”
During the Groves rebuild, it wasn’t Carl Froch he had to worry about. Instead, it was another rival of his; a man with whom Groves had even more history and tension.
That man was James DeGale, a fellow Londoner whose 2015 win over Andre Dirrell meant he had beaten Groves to the punch in terms of winning a world title. He now possessed something Groves, his former Dale Youth gym mate, had yet to secure, only Groves didn’t appear too bothered by the development. After all, he had something on DeGale: two wins (one as an amateur, one as a pro). Moreover, if Groves knew anything in those days, he knew the pain of a man who had lost twice to the same opponent without being able to set the record straight.
“I wanted DeGale to win [against Dirrell] because you need British rivals to become a success,” he said. “DeGale will always want and need that fight with me for the same reason I wanted to get Froch back in the ring. DeGale knows I have two wins over him and that our careers are running alongside each other.
“At some point he’ll want to try and put the record straight, and that means I’ll get another chance to beat him up in front of a sold-out arena or stadium and make good money in the process. Without me, his career has very little relevance. He can’t sell-out venues and he’s not a headliner. A world title doesn’t change that.”
In the end, Groves would go on to beat Fedor Chudinov to claim the WBA super-middleweight title at Bramall Lane, a football stadium in Sheffield, in May 2017. He used lessons learned to succeed in his fourth attempt at winning a world title and the victory was all the sweeter for the journey he had been forced to endure in pursuit of it.
He would then fight on three more occasions, Groves, though would not again cross paths with James DeGale until, in 2024, they appeared on a podcast together as retired world champions. They could laugh about it now, by all accounts. DeGale could laugh about his two defeats to Groves and Groves, too, has often made light of his two defeats to Carl Froch, with whom he has since not only done podcasts but even teamed up for a speaking tour.
Perhaps, when knowing that nothing can be corrected, it’s easier that way. Perhaps freedom comes with acceptance, letting go. Perhaps the only thing to do with something you cannot change is make peace with it.
