My dad is called Dempsey.. I was born to be a boxer
KIWI KID PARKER ON THE DEBT HE OWES HIS PARENTS
WITH a dad called Dempsey, Joseph Parker was always going to be a boxer.
Some of Parker’s earliest memories are of his father holding up his hands for him to punch.
The boxing-mad Dempsey, who moved to New Zealand with his wife Sala from Samoa in the 1980s, trained Joseph and his younger brother John, who is also a professional boxer, at their South Auckland home.
Dempsey took the chubby Joseph to his first club at 10 and he and Sala held down three jobs between them to fund his amateur career.
They built a gym for him at home because Sala felt sorry for him training in the wet and cold. They also gave him a kick up the backside when needed and Sala rollocked him for skipping training to indulge in his favourite hobby of fishing.
Joseph had no funding and his parents scraped the money together to send him on his own to the 2011 World Amateur Championships in Azerbaijan, where he became the first Kiwi to beat a Cuban.
“My dad’s passion for the sport is pretty much like mine, we love boxing,” said Parker. “He’s named after Jack Dempsey.
“Without the help of my parents, and the roles they played, I wouldn’t be here.
“Right next to my bedroom, dad made a chin-up bar with a rowing machine and a treadmill. From there, as years went by, we were able to raise some money and dad got all these people involved to build a gym at home.”
He turned pro in July 2012 after he failed to make the London Olympics, just weeks before Joshua (below) won gold
Parker, 26, developed fast, ditching his habit of enjoying a McDonald’s after weigh-ins, although he heeded his mum’s advice to combine boxing with a trade.“I was a builder,” said the courteous Parker, who is known as Gentleman Joe. “I loved construction and my mum said to me many times that I needed to have a fall-back plan in case everything went wrong.” Parker, who plays the piano and guitar, has built such a solid career that he no longer needs a safety net. Under the tutelage of his Las Vegas-based trainer Kevin Barry (above), he claimed the WBO title against Andy Ruiz in December 2016 and is 24-0 with 18 stoppages. His proudest moment was buying his parents a house, and his £7million purse for fighting Joshua will set him, his partner Laine Tavita, who is expecting their second child in June, and daughter Elizabeth up for life.
Parker’s promoter David Higgins claims Joshua is “softer” than the Kiwi because he’s had it easy in his career.
Joshua was fully funded with lottery money before he turned pro in 2013, while Parker received no help.
“New Zealand doesn’t have a boxing heritage and there’s no government funding of boxing, so we’ve done it on the smell of an oily rag,” said Higgins.
“Joseph started with nothing and no name and we have scrapped, hustled and fought our way to the top of the world and that gives us real confidence and an in-built strength.
“Joshua has had it easy and I think he may be softer.
“Joseph’s journey is the opposite to everything Joshua has had laid on for him and I think that’s a strength for him.”