Liam Paro

And still, I just loved it, you know.

I was like, wow.

It was humbling, you know, like...

It was, yeah, I just straight away after I went into the boxing gym, I'm like, this is it.

And I remember when I was 13 years old and up in our farm up in Farley up there, I was sitting on the kitchen bench and I remember saying to mom, this is only probably been boxing maybe a year, year and a half.

So I'm going to be a world champion.

I'm going to be a world champion at this sport.

And she believed and she tells that story to everyone that I was so content that I was going to do it.

And to be able to do it back in 2024 was just amazing.

That was amazing.

Yeah, like all we've got is our word and to be able to be a man of mine was, oh, it was unreal.

YouTube videos, Manny Pacquiao, you know, I used to watch Manny Pacquiao all the time, you know.

Because obviously being a Southpaw, I'd favour Ernest Pernod Whitaker, Hector Camacho.

So I'd just be studying these guys, seeing them with the belts.

I'm like, man, I want to do that.

I want to be one of them.

And that was it.

There was a lot of – yeah, I left a lot behind.

When I was 15, I moved up from Mackay to Townsville to train with Mark Flanagan and Dennis Clancy at the Hawks Boxing Club in Upper Ross.

That was a big first step.