Tough stint in China pivotal in shaping fighter
Joseph Parker is sitting in his fourthfloor hotel room in Cardiff Bay reflecting on a defining 10 weeks of his life, a time of adversity before he turned professional which he believes helped make him the man he is now.
That time came in 2011 in Jinan, China, a 45-minute flight from Beijing, after he signed a contract with World Series Boxing, a series featuring 12 franchises in which he found himself representing China.
The vision he describes as he arrived in China, a cold and lone
19-year-old from South Auckland with no support but for a translator whom he says couldn’t speak English very well, is bleak to say the least.
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26-year-old gets his mental strength? Where he gets the ability to control his emotions to the extent he won’t be fazed when he walks into a seething Principality Stadium tomorrow morning? This is a big part of it.
“I stayed in a sports centre which was . . . it was bad,” says Parker, freshly showered after a short and intense workout before his world heavyweight unification title fight against Anthony Joshua. “I honestly walked into my building and looked around in shock. I started tearing up, thinking ‘what the hell?’
“I shared a room. There were three bunks — bed here, bed here and bed here. There was another room next to us. I was there by myself for a week and then a guy from Uzbekistan and one from Germany arrived.
“The bathroom was a squatting toilet and right next to the squatting toilet was the shower.”
Three countries had gone for Parker, the New Zealand amateur heavyweight champion, after he had won bronze at the youth world championships the year before in 2010 (and who missed out on selection for the 2012 Olympics).
“France, India and China were in for me. China was a new franchise, so they got the first pick and so I signed a contract and there I was.”
The World Series Boxing fighters are paid, but box only over five rounds. The fights are scored like amateur bouts but they don’t wear singlets or headgear.
Back then, six years ago on the
I Skyped my family and started tearing up again; ‘help me get out of here, please’. Joseph Parker
other side of the world from his family, as Parker sat on his bed in shock ready to attempt to communicate with his parents for the first time after arriving, he noticed something else.
“The mattress was that thin,” Parker says, holding his fingers 2cm apart. “The funny part was the pillow was, too. Luckily I took one of those neck cushion things on the plane, so that was my pillow.
“It was snowing — I didn’t have the right clothes. The shower sometimes was warm water only at a certain time, but we’d be training at that time. I saw the sun three times the whole time I was there.
“I was by myself for a week and the translator didn’t even know how to speak English. [When I arrived] I got on my laptop and Skyped my family and started tearing up again; ‘help me get out of here, please’. I just had to stick it out. They couldn’t do anything because I’d signed a contract. I stayed there for two months. I slowly got used to it. I slowly adapted.”
Training consisted of running around an athletics track, the only heavyweight in camp, with lighter boxers continually overtaking him. There were light weights to use in the gym. He had three fights and lost all of them by decision.
Now, he is in a spacious Cardiff hotel room with a view of the sea and city, a room organised into a manageable chaos of open suitcases and clothes. The spotless white boxing boots he wore in training are placed outside on the balcony neatly facing south.
Talking to the Herald about one of the toughest experiences of his life, he looks back with pride at how he came through it, and at what it taught him.
“Bro, if I could face that, and live there and handle it . . . being away from home doesn’t affect me any more,” he says, glancing across the city skyline to the Principality Stadium, where he will battle Joshua.
“Even though I didn’t like the experience, it strengthened me in many ways. It made me realise how blessed we are on our side of the world. We’re fortunate living in New Zealand.”
If that was a tough time for Parker, imagine what it was like for mum Sala and dad Dempsey. The pair could do little but try to comfort him from afar, knowing, probably, that it would either make or break him.
Sala says: “It was extremely hard because you want so much to be with him and cheer him up. But I guess that experience . . . if you think about coming to the UK with 80,000 people [in a crowd watching the fight], it does not mean much to him.
“He is pretty good at controlling his emotions. That’s not going to be a problem, I can assure you,” she says.