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PADDY DONOVAN DOMINATED hometown hero Lewis Crocker in Belfast but suffered a disqualification defeat in a compelling, highly controversial world-title eliminator at the SSE Arena.
Donovan, who controlled the bout and delivered the more hurtful blows throughout, officially endured a first career defeat, his record dropping to 14-1 . A rematch between the pair feels inevitable. That Crocker was in no rush to commit to one probably tells its own story. “We were hoping to work in the second part of the fight and come into it, and it’s just a shame the way it happened.”
“You can see Lewis was a beaten man and I won the fight fair and square. And the ref took my dreams away tonight.Donovan’s trainer Lee parked his annoyance with referee McDonnell in the aftermath and gave a diplomatic assessment of the finish. “Listen, they were both going in with their heads,” Lee added, protesting McDonnell’s decision to penalise only his boxer for the routine head-clashes between the protagonists.
While the action took a while to heat up, the main event as an overall package was a hair-raising affair from the off. When the first bell sounded, Crocker immediately pushed forward behind a tight guard, offering Donovan little surface area to target but equally throwing little of note himself. McDonnell determined early on that these were exclusively Donovan’s fault. It seemed a harsh judgement.
While Donovan was decidedly on top, Crocker remained dangerous. He answered with plenty, including a couple of tidy right hooks to Donovan’s head which breathed life into a home crowd which had grown tense.The technical boxer began to march down the supposedly more beastly Belfast man — until McDonnell pulled the trigger and deducted a point from Donovan following another head clash.
When he was deducted once more in Round 8 and found himself on the brink of disqualification, Donovan immediately attacked with urgency. His plan was demonstrably clear: get the job done before he could get jobbed himself. Donovan initially celebrated as though he had won the fight by stoppage. He was soon disabused of this notion and had to be restrained by Andy Lee in his corner before he burst into tears, his hard work in vain and his world-title dream postponed.
“But the reality is there’s going to be a lot of people wanting to see this fight again. We know what controversy does: it builds into massive fights, massive rematches. The rematch of this fight is huge. It was a significant win for Richards, who gave current undisputed light-heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol a tough night of it four years ago, while defeat will likely signal the end of the road for McCrory after an enjoyable seven-year pro career.
In a cruiserweight battle of long-time friends and local rivals, Steven Ward turned the tables on Tommy McCarthy with a sixth-round stoppage of the former European champion.A massive win for Steven Ward in Belfast 👏#McCarthyWard | @DAZNBoxing | #CrockerDonovan pic.twitter.com/UApMhZHaWm
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