Referee Marcus McDonnell spoiled what would have been a perfect victory for Paddy Donovan (14-1, 11 KOs) by disqualifying him without warning in the eighth round after he folded Lewis Crocker (21-0, 11 KOs) like an accordion after with a right hand to the head on Saturday night in their IBF welterweight title eliminator at The SSE Arena in Belfast, Ireland.
(Credit: Mark Robinson)
Donovan threw his right hand like he was swatting a housefly, and sent Crocker into the dirt. I don’t know if he was milking the knockdown or what, hoping for sympathy from the referee. He took his sweet time getting back up, and then took a look at him, and DQ’d Donovan on the spot. In hindsight, the referee should have given a warning or taken a point off instead of stopping the fight.
A Bailed Out Boxer
It was so strange. The punch came just a fraction of a second after the bell. It wasn’t like Donovan continued to knock the living daylights out of Crocker for 5-10 seconds. It was just one punch after the bell, and that was it. From appearances, it looked like the referee bailed Crocker out of a tough situation. If the fight had been allowed to continue, Donovan would have finished him off for sure. He was beating the hapless up in every round of the fight, making it look too easy.
Crocker was down in the eighth and cut on both eyes in the sixth. He was getting worked over by Donovan, who was on another level talent-wise than him in this fight.
There’s no word yet whether there will be a rematch. I guess if you’re Crocker, you’d want to skip the rematch and go straight into a title fight against IBF champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis. That fight would pay better, and if you’re going to lose, it might as well be against him.
