“The fact that the performance was so good in the first one, and the mistake from Marcus McDonnell that caused the fight [to end], I think a lot had Lewis’ fear going into the first fight. ‘Oh, he’s going to be so strong, he’s going to be so powerful, and how is Paddy going to keep him off big punches?’ But I stood and I fought him. I beat him. And I realistically dominated him for the whole fight, really, at his own game. So even though I never got the result that night, I felt like when I got home, when I went to sleep, I could sleep. I was still happy with the performance. I’m still only a young boy, and I went to Belfast in just my 13th, 14th fight, and I challenged for world honors, and I performed at an extremely high level, so I was proud of myself. But the second fight, I felt obviously completely different, being so close to being a world champion, being hot favorite in the bookies to be a world champion, being favorite in everybody’s eyes to be a world champion and not to be a world champion, I think that is a very hard pill to swallow.”
