Liam Paro Becomes Two-Division Champion Beating Lewis Crocker in Brisbane: The Best Fight You Missed This Week

[Dave_37]

While the World Cup dominated boxing's profile this week, one of the best fights of the year happened in Brisbane on Wednesday June 24 and barely registered outside dedicated boxing audiences. Australian Liam Paro won his second world title by defeating Lewis Crocker on a unanimous decision to take the IBF World Welterweight Championship. The scorecards read 115-113 across all three judges, making this an extremely close decision fight. Paro won the IBF belt just two days before the fight when Crocker's original mandatory opponent withdrew and Paro was installed as the new mandatory challenger.

Crocker is a Belfast welterweight who had been building steadily and had a devoted following. The Belfast crowd had been anticipating a different future for him but Paro proved the better man on the night. Both fighters gave everything in an absorbing 12 rounds that demonstrated exactly why the welterweight division is one of the deepest and most competitive weight classes in the sport. The 115-113 cards are reflective of a fight that could genuinely have gone either way.

Paro's achievement in winning two world titles is significant in the context of Australian boxing, which has had periods of prosperity and relative drought. He joins a small group of Australian fighters who have held multiple world championships across different weights. The Ennis-Zayas card tonight in Brooklyn will overshadow the Paro-Crocker result entirely in the news cycle, but in terms of competitive quality it deserves its place as one of the year's better welterweight performances.