Nested ListView DataPager stops working with updatepanel - asp.net

Question

Here is my scenario:
I have several deals, each has a category, all are grouped by categories as such:
DealView: Name (the category), Deals (List of Deals objects)
the DealViews (List) is bound to the category list view, the listview on item databound generates the corresponding inner listviews and sets their corresponding data pagers paging size,it also decides whether to show the inner pagers or not. The OnLoad event of the categories listview is used for the postback of the any of the internal pagers. I can debug the code and i can see that the Load event is executed, the inner pagers SetPageProperties are also set correctly however nothing changes on the UI no matter how many times I click. If I remove the updatepanel, everything works as expected. Here is some, or alot of code :)
<div class="tabs-content">
<asp:UpdatePanel ID="upDeals" runat="server" UpdateMode="Conditional">
<ContentTemplate>
<asp:ListView ID="lvCategorisedDeals" runat="server" DataKeyNames="Deals" >
<LayoutTemplate>
<asp:PlaceHolder ID="itemPlaceholder" runat="server"></asp:PlaceHolder>
<div class="clear"></div>
</LayoutTemplate>
<ItemTemplate>
<div class="tab-item">
<asp:ListView runat="server" ID="lvCategoryDeals">
<LayoutTemplate>
<div class="deals">
<asp:PlaceHolder ID="itemPlaceholder" runat="server"></asp:PlaceHolder>
</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
</LayoutTemplate>
<ItemTemplate>
<div class="rc-item">
<h3><%# Eval("Title") %></h3>
<div class="deal-img">
<img src="<%# Eval("ImageUrl") %>" width="168" height="113">
</div>
<div class="deal-data">
<div class="info"><%# Eval("Caption") %></div>
<div class="price"><%# Eval("Currency") %> <%# Eval("DiscountedPrice") %></div>
<div class="deal-booking">Buy Now</div>
</div>
</div>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:ListView>
<div class="dealsPager">
<asp:DataPager runat="server" ID="pgInner" PagedControlID="lvCategoryDeals" >
<Fields>
<asp:NumericPagerField />
</Fields>
</asp:DataPager>
</div>
</div>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:ListView>
</ContentTemplate>
</asp:UpdatePanel>
</div>
And in the code behind:
void lvCategorisedDeals_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (Page.IsPostBack)
{
foreach (var item in lvCategorisedDeals.Items)
{
if (item.ItemType == ListViewItemType.DataItem)
{
var lvInner = item.FindControl("lvCategoryDeals") as ListView;
if (lvInner == null)
throw new InvalidOperationException("The inner ListView was not found");
var pgInner = item.FindControl("pgInner") as DataPager;
if (pgInner == null)
throw new InvalidOperationException("The inner pager was not found");
if (lvCategorisedDeals.DataKeys == null && lvCategorisedDeals.DataKeys.Count == 0)
throw new InvalidOperationException("The outer ListViews Datakeys do not seem to be set");
var dataItem = lvCategorisedDeals.DataKeys[item.DisplayIndex].Value as List<GRCDeal>;
lvInner.PagePropertiesChanging += new EventHandler<PagePropertiesChangingEventArgs>(
(s, evt) =>
{
pgInner.SetPageProperties(evt.StartRowIndex, evt.MaximumRows, false);
// Get the data for the ListView lvInner
lvInner.DataSource = dataItem;
lvInner.DataBind();
}
);
}
}
}
}
void lvCategorisedDeals_ItemDataBound(object sender, ListViewItemEventArgs e)
{
var listViewDataItem = e.Item as ListViewDataItem;
if (listViewDataItem == null)
return;
if (listViewDataItem.ItemType == ListViewItemType.DataItem)
{
var lvInner = e.Item.FindControl("lvCategoryDeals") as ListView;
if (lvInner == null)
throw new InvalidOperationException("The inner ListView was not found");
var pgInner = e.Item.FindControl("pgInner") as DataPager;
if (pgInner == null)
throw new InvalidOperationException("The inner pager was not found");
var dataItem = listViewDataItem.DataItem as DealView;
pgInner.PageSize = this.PageSize;
pgInner.Visible = dataItem.Deals.Count > this.PageSize;
lvInner.DataSource = dataItem.Deals;
lvInner.DataBind();
}
Additional things to note is that I am passing that List of Deals as DataKeys and I am able to grab it fine. First binding happens on page load. The code is inside a user control part of Visual WebPart (SharePoint 2013).
Appreciate any help since this is killing me.