Crocker insisted a rematch is warranted and he was keen to make it happen, but nonetheless, is adamant the right call was made at the end of their first fight.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old put his performance in March down to “an off night” but acknowledges he will go into the rematch as an outsider after opinions were split before their first fight.<\/p>\n
He accepts he will need a much better performance to leave no room for debate this time around but shot down Donovan’s jibes by saying his rival simply paid the price for breaking the rules.<\/p>\n
“I agreed with the decision, but also agreed there should be a rematch,” he said.<\/p>\n
“He didn’t knock me out. My eye was shut and I was in trouble at that stage. Paddy made the mistake and paid for it.”<\/p>\n
Crocker added he will be a “massive underdog” this time around.<\/p>\n
“Nobody wanted the fight to end like that, including myself, and I know I’m a lot better fighter than what I showed. The next day, I rang Jamie (Conlan, manager) and told him to get the rematch sorted.<\/p>\n
“Everything has worked out. We were fighting in an eliminator originally, but now it’s for the title. It’s everything I’ve dreamed of since I was a kid and all I’ve ever wanted.<\/p>\n
“I have to be better. Paddy is a great fighter and showed that in the last fight. I’m a massive underdog in this fight – nobody’s expecting me to win. To pull off the win, it would be the stuff of dreams.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crocker insisted a rematch is warranted and he was keen to make it happen, but nonetheless, is adamant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-29386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}