A win is a win, they often say, but still it must feel like a win. If a win feels like a defeat, or requires a rematch to clear up uncertainty, the feeling in the aftermath is not so much pride as relief; not so much victory as escape. 

For proof and for comfort, the winner will consult their record and direct you to the “W”, yet they will accept that it comes with an asterisk and that the “W” will have to be repeated, this time more convincingly, for people to forget whatever happened before.  

These are known as bittersweet victories and life, let alone boxing, is full of them. They are the wins that feel more like defeats, or at least something other than victory, and they are the wins nobody celebrates the way they would ideally want to celebrate. You will take it, of course, and spare yourself defeat, but there is still an argument to be made that a defeat that feels like a win is sometimes more satisfying than a win that feels like a defeat. 

Then again, maybe I am wrong. Maybe the idea of being a “gallant loser” and celebrated as such is the fantasy of the observer and not the reality for the fighter. Maybe when they say win at all costs, and by any means necessary, they really mean it. Who needs the praise of fans, after all, when the most important thing for a boxer is to stay unbeaten, win belts, and make money? 

In Britain, where the gallant loser tends to be more popular than the dominant victor, there is usually an outpouring of respect for the boxer who is hard done by. Why? Because it is often easier to relate to someone who has fallen short than to someone who is either accustomed to winning or fortunate to get something they didn’t deserve; the privilege of the few, never the many. In the face of the loser, especially the unlucky loser, you can see a bit of yourself and will in turn feel a bit better about yourself. It is a feeling with which you are familiar and a lesson each of us need to be taught on a regular basis. The unfairness of life, that’s all it is, and the ones who experience it publicly – our fighters – remind us that it is not an experience and a feeling exclusively ours. It is also something even the toughest and most powerful men and women walking the earth will sample from time to time. 

Recently in Britain we have witnessed a flurry of these hard-luck stories. Back in March, in Belfast, we watched Paddy Donovan produce the performance of his career against Lewis Crocker only to let his exuberance get the better of him and somehow turn a sure-fire victory into a disqualification defeat. Then, last weekend in Manchester, we had not one but two hard-luck tales, both of which shared a plot line and were almost identical. At junior-welterweight, Jack Rafferty landed a damaging shot on Cory O’Regan at the point at which the referee was trying to separate them, while at heavyweight David Adeleye did exactly the same in his fight with Jeamie “TKV” Tshikeva, turning the course of that fight in an instant. 

“I was trying to obey the referee and his instructions,” an aggrieved Tshikeva told Tris Dixon earlier this week. “So, at that point, when we’re in a clinch, he’s only talking to me again, but I ain’t the one holding. Adeleye’s holding my arm. So, he pulls my arm and he says ‘break’. At this point, when he says ‘break’, I remember that when he says break, step back, don’t throw a punch. So, I thought I was supposed to break. I put my arm out to show I’m not holding because he’s only talking to me. But as I was going to turn, he [Adeleye] threw a shot that I didn’t see. And then I looked at the ref when I was on the canvas.”

Tshikeva, for all his good work early, was stopped not long after that flashpoint in round six, having been hurt and unable to recover. His disappointment was then soothed only by the sympathy of others and the realisation, a few days later, that the British Boxing Board of Control were going to order an immediate rematch. 

The same goes for Crocker’s win against Donovan on March 1, which will need to be repeated in order for all the noise to settle down and for Crocker to this time feel like a winner. For now, the Belfast man knows only that he “won” the first fight because Donovan got carried away and forced the referee to disqualify him for landing a punch after the bell to end round eight. But, make no mistake, there was no cause for celebration that night. 

“That’s not the way I want to win a fight,” admitted Crocker, who was floored by Donovan in the eighth. “I heard the bell and I can’t see because I’ve been getting hit in the head all night. I dropped my hands and that’s what caused the [second] knockdown. Our plan was to work in the second half of the fight, but I got repeatedly hit with the head and I got hit with an elbow at one stage. But that’s not the way I want to win a fight.”

In the ring, Donovan was crestfallen, consoled only by the arms of his trainer Andy Lee. “Listen to the crowd; the crowd can tell you,” he said. “I won the fight. I was winning every single round. I dropped Lewis, I beat him up, and I was getting the knockout. The crowd is ferocious in here. They said I hit him after the bell but I thought I hit him on the bell. You can see Lewis was a beaten man and I won the fight fair and square. The ref took my dreams away.”

In the immediate aftermath there was a concern that Crocker might take the “win” and run, copying the approach of Josh Taylor when he got the benefit of considerable doubt against Jack Catterall in 2022. But just as Taylor was eventually drawn back to Catterall on account of circumstances changing, so too will Crocker be drawn back to Donovan at a date in the future. Those two, just like Adeleye and Tshikeva, have been ordered to settle the score, this time by the IBF, and it seems only right, not only due to the way in which fight one ended but also because the fight itself was one of the more entertaining fights we have seen in the UK this year. 

“Lewis did nothing wrong, did he?” said Billy Nelson, Crocker’s coach. “No, he didn’t. If you break the rules, you get penalised. That’s what happened. He got points taken off him – for the ones [fouls] the referee had seen – and he got warned another four times. The elbows alone were worthy of a disqualification because no part of the fist was near Lewis Crocker. Then, to finish it off, you have the punch after the bell. To say he never heard the bell is nonsense. Ten thousand people did. 

“I feel for Paddy, I do. But when you consistently foul, that’s not acceptable.”

Interestingly, while both Crocker vs. Donovan and Adeleye vs. Tshikeva were decent fights on paper the first time around, repeats of both become infinitely more compelling for having been “ordered” off the back of controversy. Their value, in other words, has a lot to do with the first fight being tainted and leaving room for audience participation. A cut-and-dried result does not have the same appeal, you see, as satisfying as it can be. In that scenario there is far less of an emphasis on audience involvement and their opinions. 

“It’s going to be a big event, which is good,” Tshikeva said of the inevitable rematch with Adeleye. “It’s good for us. It’s good for boxing. So, yeah, it’s good overall. It’s a blessing in disguise, obviously.”

In boxing, there are many ways to win and there are also many ways to lose and this way, the way of Tshikeva and Donovan, is probably, in the long run, the best way to lose. It hurts more than most losses in the short term, but eventually, as both have realised, losing controversially can win hearts and open doors and can lead to opportunities further down the line. (If, of course, you are lucky.)

This was never more apparent than when George Groves petitioned to the IBF for a rematch against Carl Froch in 2014 and managed to land himself a fight four times bigger than the first. First time around, Froch and Groves fought in front of 20,000 fans at Manchester Arena, while their rematch, ordered by the IBF, took place six months later in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium. Quite the upgrade, it seemingly happened for two reasons. It happened, one, because the first fight between them was a thriller, full of momentum shifts and dramatic moments, and two, because the ending of fight one was inconclusive and controversial and invited the audience to have their say. They had their say on the night and in the days to follow and they were then encouraged to keep having their say for the next six months, until, that is, Froch, at Wembley, had the final say in the form of a right hand in round eight. 

“George Groves made our job easy,” said Eddie Hearn, Froch’s promoter at the time. “He basically sold that fight on his own and it was as big as it was because of him and his belief that he had been wronged. He wouldn’t shut up about it. He wouldn’t calm down. As a result, everybody knew about it, everybody wanted to see the rematch, and all Carl had to do was turn up and win it. It was, for Carl, the night he had been waiting for. His big breakout moment. But all the promotion and selling had been done in fight one. That call by Howard Foster [to stop Groves in round nine] helped deliver them both the biggest fight of their careers.”

It's true. Boxing is arguably never more loveable and defendable than when a fight is won fair and square and the ending conclusive. Yet it is perhaps never more seductive and lucrative than when its natural inclination towards chaos leads to controversy, second chances, and audience participation.