Meanwhile, Jeff Fenech \u2013 who Paro joins as the only Australian men to win world titles in multiple weight classes \u2013 says his unanimous decision victory is one of the greatest in boxing history in this country. <\/p>\n
Paro was forced to go to dark places, fighting through swelling under his right eye and a sickening cut on his left eye as Crocker staged a stirring comeback in the second half of their 12-round battle at Pat Rafter Arena. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not playing marbles, we\u2019re in there fighting,\u201d Paro said of the cuts around his eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little love tap, it\u2019s good \u2013 the missus loves it. It was a head clash in the heat of battle. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know the state of it, but when I saw the claret that was spraying around everywhere I thought it must be half decent.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last world class pay-per-view event held in Brisbane ended with Michael Zerafa\u2019s infamous \u201cI can\u2019t see\u201d no contest against Nikita Tszyu in January, but Paro was determined not to have his own shot at history end the same way. <\/p>\n
Expert Queensland doctor James Conville inspected the bloody cut around \u201cThe Prodigy\u2019s\u201d eye, but allowed him to finish the fight and join Fenech as a two-weight world champion. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe doc stitched it up now, and it\u2019s another battle scar \u2013 chicks dig scars,\u201d Paro said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy eye was blurry a little bit \u2013 there was blood in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t think too much, I just had to fight my way out of there, otherwise I\u2019d end up on the canvas. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the heat of battle. I just tried to crack him back, there wasn\u2019t much going through my brain, just fight.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fenech, who has known Paro for years and is close with his trainer Alfi di Carlo and Alfie\u2019s dad, Ange, was full of praise for the Queenslander after his stirring victory. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor his name to join mine, it means a lot to me,\u201d Fenech, who is training Tim Tszyu for his must-win showdown with Errol Spence, told Code Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a beautiful human and to me, that\u2019s more than boxing. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo have a great person\u2019s name besides mine, it means more.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a great human and he\u2019s worked his ass off to get where he is.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the adversity and everything with the cut \u2013 that was one of the great performances in Australian boxing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose two guys went out and fought like they would die for it. It was incredible. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very, very special and he deserves to be where he is, which is right at the top of the list of Australian fighters.\u201d <\/p>\n
Paro\u2019s win sees him in prime position to bring some of the biggest names to Australia for even bigger fights in the future. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s what his promoter, No Limit will work towards next. <\/p>\n
\u201cDevin Haney, Rolly Romero, Ryan Garcia, I would love to have any of them down here any day of the week,\u201d No Limit boss George Rose said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve even tossed up the likes of Manny Pacquiao who\u2019s still floating around the welterweight division.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be great to bring that down here as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cOff the back of that performance tonight, I\u2019d feel confident in any one of those names. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat was one of the bravest performances that we\u2019ve seen from an Australian fighter. <\/p>\n
\u201cLiam Paro showed he truly is at an elite level. He showed his boxing skillset, his toughness and that true Aussie underdog spirit and grit.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralians are often underdogs in taking on the rest of the world and I couldn\u2019t be more proud of him. <\/p>\n
\u201cLiam Paro is not only one of the greatest Australian boxers of all time, but one of the greatest Australian sportsmen of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meanwhile, Jeff Fenech \u2013 who Paro joins as the only Australian men to win world titles in multiple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-758482","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\/758482","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=758482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}