5 Things you didn’t know about Joseph Parker and Fabio Wardley
Ahead of their October 25 showdown at the O2 in London, live on DAZN, BBN have listed five fun facts about heavyweight headliners Joseph Parker and Fabio Wardley.
Parker (36-3, 24 KOs) is the WBO Interim heavyweight champion and unbeaten British boxer Wardley (19-0-1, 18 KOs) holds the WBA Interim belt.
The winner of this weekend’s clash will go on to challenge for undisputed heavyweight championship against Oleksandr Usyk.
Ahead of their heavyweight headliner, BBN found five fun facts on the fighters.
5 Joseph Parker Facts
1. Joseph Dennis Parker was born on January 9, 1992, in South Auckland, New Zealand to parents Sala (mother) and Dempsey (father), who both encouraged boxing within their household. His dad Dempsey was named after the American heavyweight and he taught his middle child Joe how to punch in combinations from the age of three. His mother was also a big influence, once advising him to, “Train hard or take up ballet!” His siblings include older sister Elizabeth and younger brother, John, who is now 31 and also a pro boxer, so far winning 11 from 13 bouts at cruiserweight.
2. Parker’s inspirations included local heroes David Tua – an Olympic bronze medallist and world title contender – and three-time Olympian and middleweight world champion Maselino Masoe.
3. Joseph started at his local Papatoetoe boxing club at the age of 10, trained by Grant Arkle and former pro Manny Santos, and had his first amateur fight in 2004 when he was 12. He went on to have 66 bouts, winning national and international championships, collecting bronze and silver at Youth World Championships and Youth Summer Olympics, respectively, while defeating the likes of Frazer Clarke; Johan Linde; Erik Pfeifer, also sharing the ring with Junior Fa; Zhilei Zhang; Tony Yoka; Filip Hrgovic.
4. Trained by Kevin Barry, Parker was the first ever heavyweight boxer from New Zealand and the Pacific Islands to win a world title, when he defeated Andy Ruiz Jr to win the WBO world title in December 2016.
5. Now trained by Andy Lee, Parker goes by the high chief name of Lupesoliai La’auliolemalietoa, bestowed upon him by the chief of the Faleula village in Samoa. The Faleula village on the main island of Upolu is where his mother hails from, but emigrated with his father to New Zealand in the 1980s to find work. He is the youngest person in history to receive Samoa’s Order of Merit Award at the 2017 Government’s Honours. The Prime Minister also commissioned a half-day holiday to celebrate Parker’s world title win in 2016.
Bonus Fact: Parker has six children – four daughters and two sons – and due to his staunch dedication to his craft, he missed the birth of all six of them, due to being thousands of miles away in training camp each time they were born.
Parker on Wardley: “For me this is all or nothing. I am not really thinking about losing this fight, I am going into this fight to win. And when I win I will be going onto the next fight. I respect my opponent and what he has done in his career and how he has prepared for this fight, but I am a different level, to be honest. And I am going to show it on Saturday night.
“I have got many miles on the clock and many more to bring. I am only getting into my prime now.
“Credit to Wardley for taking this fight, but it is the wrong time to take this fight because I am going to smash him. He picked this fight and I said yes to every fight, so we both want this fight.
“He believes in himself but I know I am going to win this fight. He is going to learn that it is okay to have a loss and he has got enough time to climb back.”
5 Fabio Wardley Facts
1. Fabio didn’t start boxing until he was 20. Working for a recruitment agency in London, he signed up for white collar boxing, then turned pro after only four bouts in 2017. He scored a knockdown in his very first professional round – a sign of things to come.
2. Trained by Robert Hodgins, Wardley said he eagerly asked to spar after his first boxing session and was put in the ring with an ABA champion who beat him up and dropped him a couple of times. He was ambitious to be as good as his advanced sparring partners so he kept getting in against them at every opportunity.
3. He spent three weeks sparring with Oleksandr Usyk in 2018, despite only turning pro a year earlier in 2017.
4. After his epic British battle with Frazer Clarke in 2024, Wardley admitted that he was so badly battered, bruised and lacerated that he couldn’t eat anything other than soft noodles or ice cream for four days. In their rematch, Wardley took just one round to break Clarke’s jaw.
5. Wardley was originally a footballer, playing in the academy of Ipswich Town FC, the club he has supported his entire life. In his last fight he got to play there again, headlining at the 30,000-capacity Portman Road stadium against Justis Huni, who he knocked out in the 10th round.
Bonus Fact: Wardley has scored a knockdown in every single one of his 20 pro fights.
Wardley on Parker: “It is a massive night coming up on Saturday. Massive for the pair of us sitting at this table and massive for me at this stage of my career as well. It is obviously the biggest fight of my career and biggest fight of my life coming up. So far, so good for me, every time I do step up I rise to the occasion and rise to the challenge. Saturday is going to be no different.
“The separation between where Joe is and where people think I am has been a common theme for me throughout my career. It is nothing new that I am hearing. Every time I step up to a new level, it is always this is a step too far until I come through and win and then it is the next step is too far.
“I relish the challenge, I look forward to stepping up and proving people wrong, showing people that I am very much at the top level in this division.
“I don’t know if it is positive or negative really that everyone focuses on my power, knocking opponents out. My record speaks for itself and I guess in that case it draws away from my boxing skill and ability. I think anyone with an educated brain in boxing knows that it takes more than muscles and a bit of strength to knock someone out.
“It takes practice, timing, precision and you’ve got to work at those things. All this leads to boxing IQ. Just because my record is littered with highlight reel knockouts, I think people get distracted by that and it takes away from what got me to those punches.
“So it can work to my benefit. If you think I’m going to be running around that ring with my right hand cocked waiting ready to go, there is a lot more you and the team need to prepare for.
“Parker has been going around the block for a long time, with a lot of fights on his record. By no means is he an old man in the game, but he has been in the sport for a long time and had some heavy fights. Look, I’ve been in a few wars myself and I know they put miles on the clock and Parker has been in a lot more rounds and a lot more of those than me.
“There are two sides to that coin of experience. You can take all that experience into the fight, but you are also taking all the miles in there as well. You can’t erase those, you bring them with you. It just depends how you want to look at it.”