{"id":220993,"date":"2025-10-23T19:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/220993\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T19:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T19:35:09","slug":"parker-vs-wardley-new-zealander-says-he-will-smash-briton-on-saturday-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/220993\/","title":{"rendered":"Parker vs Wardley: New Zealander says he will “smash” Briton on Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ipswich fighter Wardley’s rise through the heavyweight ranks has been nothing short of remarkable.<\/p>\n

Having only taken up boxing aged 20, he began in the unlicensed white-collar scene before turning professional.<\/p>\n

In response to Parker’s comments, Wardley remained unfazed.<\/p>\n

“For me it’s nothing new. I relish the challenge,” he added. “I look forward to stepping up. Proving people wrong, proving doubters wrong, and that I belong very much at this top level.”<\/p>\n

Having shown his quality at domestic level with notable victories over David Adeleye and Frazer Clarke, Wardley produced a stunning one-punch 10th-round knockout of Australian Justis Huni in June<\/a> – despite trailing on the scorecards at the time.<\/p>\n

But he believes his knockout record – 18 of them in 19 wins and one draw – sometimes overshadows his technical ability.<\/p>\n

“Just because my record is littered with highlight-reel knockouts, I think people get distracted by that and take away my actual boxing skills which set up those punches or brought me to those moments,” said Wardley.<\/p>\n

“If you think I’ll be running around that ring with my right hand ready to go, then there’s a lot more you and the team will need to prepare for.”<\/p>\n

As the news conference drew to a close, Parker repeated his earlier statement when asked for a final message for Wardley. <\/p>\n

“I’m going to smash you,” he added, although there was little real animosity between the pair despite the fiery words as they ended the obligatory face-off with smiles and a handshake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ipswich fighter Wardley’s rise through the heavyweight ranks has been nothing short of remarkable. Having only taken up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-220993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}