{"id":327129,"date":"2025-12-04T12:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T12:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/327129\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T12:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T12:24:08","slug":"eddie-hearn-wants-windsor-park-return-for-lewis-crockers-first-ibf-title-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/327129\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Hearn wants Windsor Park return for Lewis Crocker’s first IBF title defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Crocker’s promoter Eddie Hearn has confirmed a “big outdoor event” at Windsor Park is likely for the IBF welterweight champion’s first title defence in spring.<\/p>\n

Crocker won the title<\/a> at the home of Northern Ireland football in September with a split-decision win over Limerick’s Paddy Donovan.<\/p>\n

Donovan will travel to Brisbane to face Australia’s Liam Paro in a final eliminator for the mandatory position on 16 January, as he seeks a third fight with Crocker following September’s loss and their initial meeting in March when he was disqualified for punching after the bell.<\/p>\n

Last week, BBC Sport NI reported 11 April at Windsor Park<\/a> as the likely date and venue for Crocker’s return in a voluntary defence and Hearn confirmed another big night in Belfast is in the works.<\/p>\n

“We are working with the government there for another big outdoor event,” Hearn told Ring Magazine.<\/p>\n

“Lewis has done extremely well and he will hopefully have a big homecoming fight as world champion back in Belfast.”<\/p>\n

Crocker has consistently expressed his desire to take on Conor Benn, who won his middleweight rematch with Chris Eubank Jr<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

However, the Londoner, who intends to drop back to welterweight, has not shown the same desire to take on Crocker as he seeks to emulate his father, Nigel – a former world champion at middleweight and super-middleweight – by winning a WBC belt.<\/p>\n

The current holder of that belt in the 147lb division is Mexico’s Mario Barrios, who looks set to defend against Ryan Garcia next, with Benn installed as mandatory challenger for the winner during the WBC convention this week.<\/p>\n

“Lewis sometimes feels his name doesn’t get mentioned around Conor Benn, but Conor Benn is just fixated by the WBC world title,” Hearn said.<\/p>\n

“He doesn’t really talk about [WBA champion Rolando] Romero or [Devin] Haney – he just wants to win that green and gold [belt].<\/p>\n

“The Lewis Crocker fight is still there. I don’t think it will be Conor Benn around that time [spring], but we are looking at a big fight for him, March or April outdoors again at Windsor Park.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Crocker’s promoter Eddie Hearn has confirmed a “big outdoor event” at Windsor Park is likely for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-327129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327129","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=327129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}