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.