Kevin Barry believes a leaner and faster Joseph Parker will be their best bet at beating Anthony Joshua in their much-anticipated heavyweight unification bout in Cardiff on April 1 (NZT).
While much of the pre-fight hype has surrounded Joshua's power, it’s Parker's speed that has his boxing trainer confident of a knock-out win.
Speaking to Andrew Gourdie and Jim Kayes on RadioLIVE, Barry revealed fans should expect a much faster, but no less powerful, Parker in Wales.
"More movement and faster feet…that’s something that we’ve worked on this whole training camp from our flexibility work to our strength and conditioning work, boxing work to our road work," said Barry.
"Joe's feet are a lot faster than they were in 2017 and I think this is something that I said right in the beginning. It was going to be very important that his punches were faster and to enable us to punch faster, his feet had to move faster, and I think we’re on track.
"Joe’s speed is his power and the fact he can deliver that punch from angles without the opponent seeing it.
"It’s the ones you don’t see that really does the damage and that’s the combination of speed and power for Joseph Parker."
Parker's new-found speed can be put down to an honest evaluation of last year’s exploits in the ring and, in particular, his win over Hughie Fury.
Despite being the shorter opponent, Parker weighed in 5kg heavier than the Briton and Barry concedes it slowed the big Kiwi down.
"Obviously Joe’s power is a combination of speed and power and it begins with the feet. I believe in 2017 we put that extra size on him and it was still a process of trial and elimination," he said.
"We were trying different things and I don’t really believe that putting that extra size on had Joe fighting at his best.
"We’ve got a little bit of weight off; he’s moving a little bit faster, he’s punching a lot faster so I think we’re on track.
"He’s already a lot light than he was for the Hughie Fury fight and we’re a month out from the Joshua fight."
Heading into undoubtedly the biggest fight of his career, Parker’s mental toughness is something Barry has complete faith in.
"The mind is something that we work on every single day in the gym and Joseph also has a mind coach, somebody who is highly skilled, who works with him on a weekly basis.
“Our game is much physical as mental and Joe’s very comfortable at the moment, he’s very relaxed, he knows what he has to do.”
"Joe’s in a great frame of mind, his body looks good, his performance in the gym is looking good and we’re feeling very comfortable at the moment."
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