Lewis Crocker: Former world champion has opportunities ahead – Conlan

Crocker and his team had hoped to have a first defence in his native Belfast, but with the IBF enforcing a mandatory defence and Australian promoter No Limit Boxing winning a subsequent purse bid by edging out Matchroom by $27,000 (£20,000), the challenger enjoyed home advantage.

Conlan admits “it was always a tough ask going to Brisbane” but feels “if the fight was in Belfast, we would have won”.

“We just got on with it,” he said.

“Prior to it [travelling], it was annoying he had to go to Brisbane for his first defence but it was out of our control. All we could do is control the controllables, prepare the best, set up camp and he invested in himself.

“It’s the fine margins at world level that win or lose a fight: the fine margin of it not being in Belfast, fine margin of certain moments towards the end when he was being held and looking for that one punch to find the stoppage.

“I thought the ref [Tony Weeks] was very poor with [Paro] headbutts throughout, low blows throughout and at the end with the holding, but credit where it’s due: Liam was very good, very tough and resilient. He’s a 140-pounder but fights at 147 against bigger boys and is able to tough it out.”

Paro’s fast start helped him build an early lead and he did enough to remain ahead by winning the 10th on all three of the cards, it ultimately left Crocker needing knockdowns to pull it back.

Had he made the better start, it could have been a different story, but his manager feels he “will have learned a lot from that fight against a serious world-class operator”.

“It was really close,” he reflected.

“He started a little bit slow and that’s annoying him as he knows he had the tank to push on at the end. It was always in the locker and he just had to prove it to himself, but he will be a better fighter going forward.

“We just go back to the purse bid situation and if we had won that and had the fight here in Belfast, 100% he would still be world champion.”