For WBO interim champ Joseph Parker, the stakes don't get any higher

Boxing careers are renowned for being riddled with meticulous measurements and painstaking diligence, so much so there’s bound to be a detailed explanation for the latest route Kiwi heavyweight Joseph Parker has decided to take.

“It’s simple really: I just want to fight,” Parker told Uncrowned.

OK, so perhaps not?

Parker (36-3, 24 KOs) is speaking a couple of weeks out from a clash with WBA interim champion and unbeaten British heavyweight Fabio Wardley (19-0-1, 18 KOs) inside London’s O2 Arena and paints a picture of calm as he reclines on his sofa following a morning of sparring in Andy Lee’s Dublin gym.

Telling someone all you want to do is “fight” is a hard task without a sinister tone accompanying it, but the 33-year-old manages it effortlessly, somehow passing it off as a charming, almost playful line.

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Perhaps Parker is hinting at his disillusionment with the politics that dog his craft — a resignation that he can only control certain aspects of his career?

“That didn’t take long,” he said as I steered him to explore his current situation. “It’s a funny sport. The higher you climb, the more problems seem to appear in making certain fights. I’m not sure why [Oleksandr] Usyk is waiting for so long to defend his belts — there’s a queue of heavyweights waiting for some action. To me, he looked pretty fit in his last fight, and even fitter on the soccer pitch a few months ago.”

If there’s one thing Parker has had to learn more than most heavyweights, it’s patience. The past few years have tested it over and over again. On paper, 2025 should’ve been his year — a chance to share the ring with both Daniel Dubois and Usyk, chasing those world titles that have always felt just within reach.

Joseph Parker (L) and Fabio Wardley face off as Frank Warren, founder of Queensbury Promotions (C), looks on following their news conference ahead of their heavyweight fight Oct. 23, 2025, in London. (Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

(Richard Pelham via Getty Images)

But boxing, as ever, had other plans. Two days before their Feb. 22 fight in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Dubois fell ill, and the first dream slipped away. Then came the injury to Usyk just as he was ordered to fight the Kiwi — another door closing before Parker could step through it. Twice in one year, he was left waiting, watching the opportunities drift just out of reach and somehow finding calm in the space between.

“I’ve had two rounds — well, not even a full two rounds — of boxing this year [successfully defending his WBO interim heavyweight title against Martin Bakole, who infamously accepted the Feb. 22 replacement fight on two days’ notice, boarding three flights from Congo to Saudi Arabia], so I wanted to make sure I got back into the ring before the year closes out,” he explained.

“[Fabio] Wardley was the only fight offered to me, so I told my manager [David Higgins] and the guys at Queensberry [Promotions] that we should do it. It’s one of those things. I’m not getting any younger, and at the end of the day I’m in this sport to fight — not just to train and hit pads all year.

“Whoever is put in front of me, it’s simple: I want to smash their face in and move onto the next one.”

Parker is right — it is simple. But this perceived simplicity is laced with risk. His decision to accept Wardley’s challenge at such a poignant time in his career will either prove to be brave or stupid. There won’t be any in between.

“I like [Wardley’s] story and his background in white-collar boxing, but the experience [gap] between ourselves is huge,” Parker continued. “I’ve done this 39 times before and been successful on a majority of these occasions. I’ve been in big fights before, championship fights, huge occasions. But he’s still young in this sport — and that’s not to say he can’t get there in the future.

“He can bang, which he showed last time out against Justis Huni, but every heavyweight can bang, that’s just the business we are in.”

Wardley comes into this fight still riding the waves of his June miracle. In front of his hometown crowd — with Ipswich Town Football Club’s team’s colors surrounding him — he was taking a beating from Huni, the kind that leaves a fighter searching for air and answers. And then, out of nowhere, one punch changed everything. In Round 10 he flattened the Australian challenger, and therefore he brings an unbeaten record to London this weekend.

“Sure, he can carry his power late, but I have been in with plenty of big bangers — all with different types of power,” Parker says. “Deontay Wilder, Zhilei Zhang and Joe Joyce — like Fabio — are guys you don’t want to be hit clean by.”

The motivation is clear for Parker: Beat Wardley and fight for the world heavyweight title again. Parker held the WBO iteration between 2016-18 before being dethroned by Anthony Joshua. Since teaming up with trainer Andy Lee and nutritionist George Lockhart, Parker has become — outside of Oleksandr Usyk — the form fighter in the division.

“Usyk is the one everyone wants because he has all the belts,” he said. “But if he’s injured or unavailable or retires, then the sport moves on and the target changes. I’d love to test myself against Usyk as he will go down as a generational great, but I can only control what I can control. So that’s why I have to continue taking fights when they are available and keep winning them.

“And when I am feeling as good as I am in my career, it would be stupid not to fight. That’s why we are doing this [fighting Wardley]. I’m excited to see what he is about, and what he brings to the fight. He’s got my full attention.”

They say that a happy fighter is a dangerous fighter, and for this training camp in Ireland, Parker has made sure he has been surrounded with his purest form of happiness: his family.

His wife, Laine, and six children have been stationed around the corner from his camp throughout the past two months, with her able to watch him fight live for the first time out of their native New Zealand.

As we edge closer to Saturday’s fight night, soundbites will be hard to come by. Parker and Wardley are two of the heavyweight division’s gentlemen, and it’s impossible to imagine things boiling over in the final meetings. They’ll save the fireworks for a fight where one punch could settle the score.

For Parker, the road to Usyk and regaining heavyweight gold can only continue with his hand raised. The stakes don’t get any higher.