Promoter Dean Lonergan of Duco Events explained there's a bit on Joseph Parker's plate at the moment in the form of Alexander Dimitrenko on October 1st in Auckland.

"We believe the guy we have up next offers Joe the sort of challenge he needs. This is a really tough fight for us and before we can think about anyone else we have to get past Dimitrenko," Lonergan said.

"Joe and his trainer Kevin Barry don't want to think beyond that at the moment . But it is my job to look past that and I like what I'm hearing coming out of England."

Parker continues to work hard at his Las Vegas camp, sparring three tall fighters especially selected to reproduce Dimitrenko's strengths.

Parker has sparred 40 rounds with another 60 planned over the next three weeks before he transfers to Auckland.

"We've put together a very strong team of sparring partners, with a solid combination of size, power, long reach, and speed," Parker's coach Kevin Barry said.

"I've got a 6'8" Romanian fighter with 20 professional fights, over 300 amateur fights, who brings a lot of power, a lot of strength, very long arms;  a 6'7" former World kickboxing champion who is undefeated as a professional boxer; and I have an undefeated cruiserweight whose 6'6.5" who I bring in at the end of the sparring sessions, who throws more punches than any heavyweight. So it's a very good combination that we're getting some terrific results with."

"For the Dimitrenko fight, its going to be very important Joe uses his speed, it's very important he's going to get in, double and triple jab his way in, work away to the body on the big man, and then get out off angles. We don't want to be caught going straight back, and we don't want to be caught finishing punching and staying inside the reach of Dimitrenko. Something we've worked on hard is getting in, getting out, and punching off the angle".

Parker said he was making the necessary adjustments.

"The things we've been working on are  head movement, making angles, and just working on defence, improving and getting better," Parker said.

"With fighting bigger guys, it's very, very important to start hitting the body early from round one. With previous fights, we've had the plan to attack the body from round one but I've sort of been attacking at around round three, so I think with this fight it's very important to execute the plan, and that's what I'm going to do."