Conah: Get ready for real ding-dong scrap

Calm before the storm…Crocker, Hearn and Walker at the conference

IT’S is potentially the fight of the year – and the explosion when Conah Walker and Lewis Cracker meet at Resorts World on June 22 may make Birmingham’s streets shudder.

This really is an epic, a collision of two hard-hitting warriors. The meeting, on Matchroom’s stacked card, can only be a thriller.

Wolverhampton’s Walker – a real throwback of a boxer – is, at 28, enjoying his peak years. With just two losses in a 16 bout career, Conah truly arrived last August by overwhelming unbeaten sensation Cyrus Pattinson – a man being groomed for very big things.

Walker followed that sensational win by blitzing Lloyd Germain, unbeaten in nine going into the contest, at Belfast’s Ulster Hall in January. The Welshman was down three times in the third.

Crocker, aged 27, was also on that bill in his home city – and also shone in stopping Jose Felix Jnr in five. That win earned him the WBO inter-continental belt.

He’s won all 18 pro fights, 10 by stoppage. In fact, The Croc won his first five contests inside three rounds.

At Thursday’s Grand Hotel, Birmingham, press conference to announce the super-show, both boxers steered clear of bad mouth banter and insults. There’s no need – the contest doesn’t need hype.

As Walker told the media scrum: “We don’t need to sell the fight, it sells itself.

“He’s meant to be this big puncher, I’m yet to find out. You (Matchroom) keep giving me fights that are made for me.

“Crocker is supposed to be a dog, until he meets a real dog we won’t know what’s in there – and I’m a real dog. It’s going to be a ding-dong.

“Lewis Crocker is the final step to massive, massive fights. He’s not going to get in the way of where I want to go.

“These are the sort of fights I relish and enjoy. I think it will be fight of the year.”

Crocker admitted an epic battle is inevitable. He said: “He’s in form, but I just think he’s bitten off more than he can chew this time. I believe I’m the better fighter.

“It’s one for the public, one for everyone. I’m excited to be sitting up here. It has war written all over it.”

That it has.