Carl Frampton Shares Crocker-Donovan Thoughts
The only prediction Carl Frampton is confident of making when it comes to Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan’s eagerly anticipated Point of Pride bout is that it will generate excitement and ensure a raucous atmosphere.
King of the atmospheric Belfast fight night, ‘The Jackal’ has long since been an advocate of ‘The Croc’ and his talents but when it comes to this all Irish world title eliminator, he claims he can’t separate his fellow Belfast man and the ‘Real Deal’.
The Irish boxing legend says he isn’t alone in that regard, pointing out that his attempt to obtain predictions from his peers has proved difficult.
“The SSE Arena will be rocking next Saturday night for a genuine 50-50 fight between Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan. This is so difficult to call and from chatting to different people in the game, the opinions are evenly divided,” Frampton explained his his popular Sunday Life column.
“What we do know is that we will learn a lot about both guys from how they perform and which comes out on top. Although both are fully confident, there is no question this is their toughest test.
“Fights such as this are the ones we all want to see and although everyone in Belfast will hope for a Crocker win to keep bringing the big nights back to the city, it will be a very difficult night,” he adds before pointing out the world title eliminator element makes it all the more interesting.
“The prize for the winner is great as they will be installed as the mandatory challenger for Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis — one of the best pound-for-pound fighters around. The American has a title unification in April against Eimantas Stanionis to take care of first, but he presents as tough a challenge as you could think of for anyone to become a world champion.
“There is plenty of speculation ‘Boots’ will move up to light-middleweight to chase bigger fights should he prevail, so the winner at the SSE Arena next weekend could fight for a vacant title against a next-ranked contender — therefore making it a golden opportunity, which raises the stakes further.
“However, that is a problem for another day as both of them have their hands full this week and trying to pick a winner is really tough.”
Frampton also doesn’t buy into the boxer versus puncher narrative.
“The narrative is that it is a fight between the big puncher in Crocker against a slick stylist in Donovan, but the Limerick man can punch too and I would suspect he carries similar power,” he continues before hinting at a potential route to victory for Crocker.
“However, when it comes to work rate and engine, Crocker may have the edge as we saw Donovan fading a little at the Ulster Hall last year against Williams Herrera, although that may have been down to any number of factors.
“Crocker can sustain that work rate as he has completed 10 high-paced rounds a couple of times and I have a suspicion he will have been told by his coach, Billy Nelson, to set a high pace from the start.
“It all makes for a thrilling battle in front of a packed-out arena where both will have their support, so it could be a raucous, hostile environment and one of those special nights in the arena.”
