Anthony Joshua vs Joseph Parker: SunSport spends a day with the Kiwi WBO heavyweight champ as he prepares for AJ showdown
Starting at 5.30am six days a week, a lifetime of dedication and a room in his trainer's house: Is this how to topple AJ?
JOSEPH PARKER'S bid to smash the dreams of Anthony Joshua begins at 5:30am every morning - except on Sundays.
The training and preparation doesn't then stop until late into the night for the WBO heavyweight champion of the world.
It is now less than three weeks until Easter Saturday when Parker puts his title on the line at Cardiff's Principality Stadium - a night when he hopes to add AJ's WBA and IBF belts to his collection.
Parker and his tight-knit team, including trainer Kevin Barry and his assistant, son Taylor, are completing their training in London at David Haye's Vauxhall gym but the bulk of the hard work has been done here in suburban Las Vegas.
In Henderson, to be precise, where former fighter Barry, his wife Tanya and three children moved to from New Zealand 14 years ago.
It is five years ago this month that Barry was approached about New Zealand heavyweight sensation Parker, who is of Samoan descent and blessed with quicksilver hands and eye-catching power.
Almost immediately, Parker, who was 21 at the time, upped sticks and took up a room in Barry's Henderson mansion.
SunSport was invited to spend a day alongside the champ as he prepares for the biggest fight of his life, a potential payday of £7million and most importantly a crack at two more world championship belts.
JOE BLOW Joseph Parker missing family as he trains for Anthony Joshua bout in Las Vegas
But this happy, friendly family home is far removed from what many would consider your typical high-stakes camp.
Tanya is in charge of the food and by 9:30am is already knocking up Parker's lunch. The 26-year-old, who has had to leave his pregnant partner Laine back home as he focuses on world domination, is asleep again after putting himself through the mill four hours earlier.
The typical day in camp begins with a run or sprints at the sports complex, which Barry's house backs on to. Breakfast, which varies, is put away before a much-needed nap.
A wide array of supplements are then taken before the core of his boxing work is done before lunch.
Barry says: “We are not reinventing the wheel with what Joe eats. It's good, clean wholesome food and it works.”
Every two weeks the team treat themselves to a slap-up meal on the Sin City strip. What sort of thing? Barry says: “It varies but it can get pretty fancy.”
Today Tanya is knocking up a pasta salad full of prawns, avocado and hard-boiled eggs which will be ready and waiting for the team when they return from the gym.
The former elite gymnast met her future husband back in 1984 when they both competed at the Los Angeles Olympics.
That year, Barry took silver with a run that included one of the most controversial bouts in the history of the Games. It saw future world champ Evander Holyfield disqualified for hitting his New Zealand opponent after the break in their semi-final.
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Nearly 34 years on, Barry and his wife now live amid something approaching domestic bliss, with a 6ft 4in heavyweight champion operating out of one of their ground floor bedrooms.
Barry has also sourced and set up their very own gym which opened just in time for this camp. Unlike the old one, it is only a short trip away from the family home.
Barry goes on ahead to prepare the session and Taylor drives the champ in a Range Rover. After a few minutes he pulls up outside a dentist's on a non-descript industrial estate.
The brand-new gym sits just behind the surgery, which opens the door for a quip about knocking sparring partners' teeth out.
So new is the facility that there is none of the expected pungent stench associated with boxing gyms, which suits Barry, who Parker describes as a "clean freak".
Parker beams when discussing his gym: “Oh man it's amazing. For the last camp we were doing a lot of travelling around, at least two hours a day but the new gym is a lot easier for all of us.
“It's nice to train in a gym like this, I look forward to it when I wake up in the morning.
“It's not like when I was younger, coming up, I trained in some stinking gyms.
“There was a club in New Zealand where I trained and the gloves stank which was bad when I couldn't afford a pair of my own.”
This place – which is a homage to Parker and his achievements under Barry - must feel like a million miles from there.
Pictures of all their 19 fights together - all victories, 13 quick - hang in chronological order above a long mirror which Parker shadow boxes in front of.
A flatscreen TV on the wall shows a replay of Joshua vs Wladimir Klitschko. Parker says they have that same fight on every day of camp.
Once he is limbered up, Parker flies through 12 three-minute rounds on the pads. Barry speaks to his charge almost in a whisper in between the combos.
His hand speed is terrific and he switches attack from head to body unlike most other heavyweights on the planet.
Parker said: "We are in tune with each other every day, our relationship is strong.
"That's totally a result of the arrangement we have. Imagine if I was living in a hotel – it just wouldn't work. I wouldn't have that relationship."
With a weight session in the evening and sparring due the following day, this technique session is kept reasonably short before it's back home for lunch.
Parker says between mouthfuls. “I think it's the perfect time to fight him. Kev said all along that we should only fight him when it made sense.
“I think now it makes perfect sense. We are both undefeated, both have world titles and we are close to unifying the whole division.”
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Once lunch, along with almost a gallon of water, is put to the sword, Parker is up again. He has his daily dose of cryotherapy to keep himself injury-free.
The blonde receptionist beams when the world heavyweight champion walks in through the door. He's a regular here at the facility and part of the furniture in the community.
She asks, “When can we go out to celebrate me turning 21?”, and the champ coolly replies, “Maybe after the fight”.
On the drive back Parker opens up about what lies ahead in the Welsh capital.
He says: “I can't wait, none of us can. The whole team is so excited about it.
“It's a great time to be a heavyweight. It's a great time to make big fights and I want to be involved in them all.
“You can't achieve greatness by yourself, you need these great opponents to do it against.
“There is me, Deontay Wilder, Joshua and then a load of other heavyweights coming up. We have to be careful of them too. They want it as bad as we do.”
Steak is on the menu for dinner – as it always is the night before sparring – and strength and conditioning before bed.
That Sunday rest day seems a long way off – but March 31 is approaching fast and there's no time to waste in the pursuit of world domination.
