{"id":579835,"date":"2026-05-12T12:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/579835\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T12:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:57:07","slug":"lewis-crocker-v-liam-paro-belfast-boxer-to-defend-ibf-title-in-brisbane-in-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/579835\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Crocker v Liam Paro: Belfast boxer to defend IBF title in Brisbane in June"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Belfast&#8217;s Lewis Crocker will defend his IBF welterweight title against Australian Liam Paro in Brisbane on 24 June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The contest will take place at the Pat Rafter Arena, with the date and venue having been confirmed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Crocker hopes that a victory over Paro would help open the door to a unification bout with another belt-holder in the division.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 29-year-old won the title with a split decision verdict over Paddy Donovan at Belfast&#8217;s Windsor Park in September and his team had hoped to stage the defence against mandatory challenger Paro in his home city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, with no agreement reached between the parties, the matter was resolved by a purse bid with No Limit outbidding Crocker&#8217;s promoter Matchroom by A$27,000 (\u00a320,000).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Crocker&#8217;s manager Jamie Conlan revealed in February the Belfast fighter was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/c8754908wv4o\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recovering from a hand injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Paro is aiming to become a world champion for the second time, having upset Subriel Matias to clinch the IBF light-welterweight crown in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Australian beat Frenchman David Papot at the same Brisbane venue last September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belfast&#8217;s Lewis Crocker will defend his IBF welterweight title against Australian Liam Paro in Brisbane on 24 June.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-579835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}