PADDY DONOVAN is ready to go from top boy to main man.
The Munster southpaw signed with Andy Lee as a gifted teen straight out of the amateur ranks.
Paddy Donovan is hoping to cap a 20-year journey by becoming a boxing world championGetty Images – Getty
He faces Lewis Crocker in an all-Irish fight in BelfastPacemaker Press
He had the looks and the moves but six years in professional boxing would be enough to weather anyone.
And that dawned on the 26-year-old last week in the gym as he led the warm-up for a host of young bucks such as Kian Hedderman, Tadhg O’Donnell and his cousin Jim Donovan.
The Real Deal, a dad of four, grinned: “Andy said, ‘Paddy, let the younger boys push on a little bit harder today, you rest’.
“I felt like, ‘Jesus man, am I actually getting old here?’
“But yeah, to be the veteran of a gym and still so young, I’ve achieved a lot so far in the sport. Yet I haven’t achieved exactly what I want to achieve in boxing, which is a world title.
“But I believe I’ve all the work done, everything is done over the past six years with Andy and the past 20 years in the boxing game. It’s just about going in and getting the job done now.
“I think I’ve ticked every single box, I’ve worked extremely hard, I went through some good challenges as a professional inside the ring and outside the ring.”
The last challenge was the toughest of all and Donovan supporters will hope it has led to his full maturity as a fighter.
The Clare-Limerick boxer was well up on Belfast rival Lewis Crocker in their SSE Arena match-up in March but ended up being disqualified for a late punch — having already been cautioned for use of the head.
Losing his zero was a severe blow but Donovan is determined to right that wrong at Windsor Park on Saturday night when they rematch for the IBF world welterweight crown.
He added: “Every young fighter, every fighter in the world wants to stay undefeated.
“But it’s not the be-all or the end-all — having a loss on the record in the fashion that it happened in, it’s in the past and we’ve regrouped. We’re just looking forward to this fight.”
Donovan won 13 Irish titles coming through the amateur ranks and had gone 14 pro contests unbeaten before coming a cropper against Crocker.
Boxers cling to the mantra, ‘everything happens for a reason’ — usually after a loss.
For Team Donovan, it has all worked out. The first bout was a title eliminator with the winner set to travel Stateside for his title shot.
Since then, though, Jaron Ennis has vacated the belt at 147lb to move to 154lb — and the IBF agreed to let the Irishmen go again, this time for the championship.
And despite the ending last time, Donovan says he has no regrets about how he went about it, adding: “No, it was the game-plan that we came up with, me and Andy, and I executed that to the best of my ability.
“I believe the ref took the decision away in the end.
“But having said all that, it has worked out better.
“Beating Lewis Crocker and going to America, fighting one of the best pros in the world, would have been a lot harder than getting the fight for the world title here in Ireland.
“Deep down I believed that the rematch would happen but I didn’t think it was going to be for the world title right away.
“But to be sitting at home with my family and kids, and Andy to give me a buzz and say, ‘Paddy, it’s officially a fight for the world title against Lewis Crocker in Ireland’ — I couldn’t ask for better than that.
“I think it’s my chance to become one of Ireland’s best-ever professional fighters, one of the best fighters we ever produced in this land.”
Determined Donovan is seeking to become only the third Irish Traveller world champion after coach Lee and the ex-middleweight’s cousin Tyson Fury.
But he said: “I never really thought about it that way. I just have always looked up to Andy, obviously being from Limerick.
“Andy was a fighter that I always wanted to be like, so to get the opportunity to work with him . . . and he always believed I was going to be a world champion.”
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