The pair first met in March of 2025. Donovan’s slick southpaw skills caused Crocker no end of problems. He looked set for a stoppage victory before getting himself disqualified after hitting Crocker moments after the bell sounded to end the eighth round.

Crocker (22-0, 11 KOs) adapted brilliantly in the September rematch. The 29-year-old Northern Irishman sat back and patiently waited for Donovan to commit before replying with some hard, heavy counterpunching. He scored two knockdowns and was awarded a split decision and the IBF title.

In June 2024, Paro (27-1, 16 KOs) travelled to Puerto Rico and produced a disciplined display to outbox and outfight the favoured Subriel Matias and claim the IBF junior welterweight title. Six months later, he ran out of ideas in his maiden title defence against Richardson Hitchins and lost a 12-round decision.

Since then, the 29-year-old southpaw has notched up a couple of confidence boosting wins and slowly acclimatised himself at welterweight but Crocker is sure that he has the size and ability to handle him.

“I think Paddy Donovan is as good a fighter as Liam Paro and a lot physically bigger so the two two back-to-back camps training for Donovan are going to help me massively in this fight, especially being a a southpaw,” Crocker said during an appearance on talkSPORT Boxing.

“I’ve seen Paro's most recent thing [a unanimous decision victory over David Papot] and he got he got hurt a few times against a guy with five knockouts.

“I think just that seven pound difference is a big weight difference, especially that I'm fully grown at the weight.”

Last week, Paro’s promoters, No Limit, outbid Matchroom by just $27,000 to secure their man home advantage. It is expected that the fight will take place in Brisbane at some point in April.

Crocker will need to plan his travel and preparations meticulously but insists that he will make the long journey fully confident of victory.

“Of course. I get to do it, as always, the hard way as well. I won my world title in Belfast. I’ve had my moment so I'll travel anywhere,” he said.

“It's a shame that it's not in Belfast because it gives other people from the country an opportunity to get on TV, which I love to do because I was always that kid on the back of Carl Frampton shows when I was getting experience, but going to Australia and beating the ex-champion in his his home country, it'll be special."