ZACH PARKER WAS on the cusp of making it big in the super middleweight division before a cruel hand injury forced him out of battle in a fight for the WBO Interim world title against John Ryder at The O2 in November of last year.

Parker failed to emerge from the fifth round and now Ryder is seemingly preparing for a shot at the undisputed champion Canelo.

Luck wasn’t on Parker’s side in 2022. A fight with two-weight and three-time world champion Demetrius Andrade was looming and would have happened back in the May if it wasn’t for the American sustaining a shoulder injury. It was a fight his promoter Frank Warren won a competitive purse bid to stage and Andrade withdrew again when the process was repeated.

While you wouldn’t describe the strapping Derby man as the quiet man of the county or backward in coming forward, at the same time, he doesn’t shout from the rooftops and has been content to let his explosive performances do the talking for him.

After all, it has served him well, with him working his way into the No.1 spot with the WBO before his Ryder setback.

Parker is more than pleased with the promotional push being awarded to him by Frank Warren. Prior to teaming up with the Hall of Famer, Parker was known to boxing people, but he went on to make the wider public sit up and take notice, along with a good few divisional rivals who wanted no part of the next passage of his upwardly mobile career progression.

Working in tandem with Warren, Parker is now a headline act, a fitting bill-topper whose exploits are beamed into the homes of millions via the BT Sport platform.

After teaming up with Queensberry and before demolishing Marcus Morrison in four rounds, Parker’s actual time under the lights amounted to not much more than seven minutes as both Vaughn Alexander and Sherzod Khusanov – neither previously stopped – succumbed to his punching prowess.