Live updates: WBO interim heavyweight title bout - Joseph Parker v Joe Joyce from Manchester's AO Arena

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Fight card:Joseph Parker v Joe Joyce (heavyweight)Michael Magnesi v Anthony Cacace (super featherweight)Amanda Serrano v Sarah Mahfoud (for IBF, WBC and WBO women's featherweight titles)Nathan Heaney v Jack Flatley (middleweight)James Heneghan v Rod Douglas Jr (middleweight)Callum Thompson v Delmar Thomas (lightweight)Amaar Akbar v Karlo Wallace (super lightweight)Tommy Fletcher v Toni Visic (cruiserweight)Ekow Essuman beat Samuel Antwi (welterweight)Mark Heffron beat Martin Ezequiel Bulacio (super middleweight)Raven Chapman beat Jorgelina Guanini (featherweight)

8:01am

Essuman v Antwi goes to the judges' scorecards. This'll be close.

Bit of a wait for a decision to come. 

And it's a unanimous victory for Essuman. Best fight of the card, so far.

7:21am

Ekow Essuman v Samuel Antwi is currently underway as the next fight of the card, but Tyson Fury has arrived to support Parker later on!

6:52am

Wow! The next fight is stopped in the first round, as England's Mark Heffron takes a convincing win over Argentina's Martin Bulacio!

6:40am

In the first fight of the morning, England's Raven Chapman has convincingly beaten Jorgelina Guanini of Argentina, in a bout that went the full eight rounds.

All three judges sided in Chapman's favour, giving her the WBC international featherweight title.

6:00am

Good morning! Here's hoping daylight saving hasn't hit you too hard! We've got a huge card on our hands today, with 11 fights.

Parker v Joyce is the last of those, expected at around (we hope) 10:30am.

Stay tuned until then though, as we bring you all the action.

*******

Kia ora, good morning and welcome to Newshub's live coverage of this WBO interim heavyweight title fight between Joseph Parker and Joe Joyce, from Manchester's AO Arena.

More than four years on from losing his WBO heavyweight title to Anthony Joshua, Joseph Parker is back in the frame to challenge again.

Victory - for either fighter - opens the door for a shot at current title holder Oleksandr Usyk, as the mandatory challenger for the WBO title.

Parker's career record stands at 30-2 from his 32 fights, but hasn't been beaten since 2018. Joyce meanwhile has never been beaten as a professional, with a record of 14-0 and 13 victories by knockout.

Both fighters have tipped the scales at career-heaviest weights. Parker weighed in at just shy of 116kg, while Joyce was 123kg.

And with Joyce holding the advantage in height, reach and weight, Parker is naturally a heavy underdog for Sunday's bout.

The main event is expected to get underway at 10:30am NZ time.

TAB odds: Parker $2.50, Joyce $1.44, draw $19

Joseph Parker fans can look forward to a blockbuster bundle of fights over the next couple of years, with promoter Ben Shalom confident the best is yet to come. 

Shalom, CEO of BOXXER, who signed Parker in June, told Newshub the former world champion is destined for more major fight nights, and he's determined to make them happen, with his career well and truly on the up. 

"He's now in a place I think he's never been before," Shalom said. "The heavyweight division is on fire, there's so many opportunities."

The next step in the journey back to the top starts on Sunday (NZT) against undefeated brit Joe Joyce at Manchester. 

Parker's trainer, Andy Lee has already said the WBO interim title fight could be an easy one if the game plan is executed right. 

Shalom shares that same optimism when it comes to the Kiwi heavyweight.  

"We just see so much long term growth for Joseph, we feel he's going to be in some huge fights in the next few years," he said. "We think he's going to be a second time world champion which would be amazing." 

Shalom revealed an attempt to fight Whyte was made earlier this year, but early 2023 now looks more likely, depending of course, how this weekend unfolds, with a rematch clause also in should Parker emerge victorious. 

"We wanted to make the Dillian Whyte fight," he said. "Dillian doesn't necessarily want that this year but that's a fight that's bound to happen early next year as well. It's huge, huge times for Joseph Parker. 

"Whatever happens on Saturday, he's going to be in some big fights. It's one thing being a great fighter but he's now a big name. He's a big draw over here, people want to fight him."

Parker himself has been vocal about a Whyte rematch, after he suffered his second career defeat to the Brit under controversial circumstances in 2018, with Whyte appearing to headbutt his opponent at one stage. 

"I think one thing that sticks out is, he is a different fighter to the one that fought Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte. He's got that experience to take into those big fights," Shalom said.

The connection with coach Lee and Tyson Fury in the UK has reignited Parker's career, with his improvement between the two fights against Derek Chisora visible. 

To the naked eye, he's fitter, faster, leaner and carrying an air of confidence about him, and Lee says he has so much more to give. 

"He still hasn't fulfilled his potential, I think there's a lot more to come. He's determined now more than ever," Lee told BT Sport. 

"I don't know what his ceiling is because he's reaching new levels all the time. 

 "I think Joe (Parker) is motivated by the fact everyone's picking Joyce to win the fight and they've got Joseph as the underdog. As a former world champion, I think he wants to prove his class and show he's an elite heavyweight." 

The fight comes at a time when the hype around the heavyweight division is electric, with Parker well in the mix when it comes to both fighting for belts, and box office fights. 

Although the bout is on BT Sport in the UK, Parker's future lies with Sky Sport after signing a long term deal with BOXXER, a relatively new promotional outfit, who are out to shake up boxing. 

"We were just young boxing fans from Manchester. In the UK, it's always been the same promoters, in the US as well, family run businesses since the 80's, where it would be very difficult to bring any new ideas and new energy into the sport," Shalom explains. 

"In the first few years, half the battle was how can we break into the market, how can we develop our own ideas based around more transparency, more opportunity for fighters, making the sport easier to understand. 

"We made a promise to ourselves that we weren't going to go after the big names at the end of their careers, we wanted to build our own stars. 

So, why Joseph Parker? 

"When we looked at Joseph, he's been around for so long and he was such a young world champion, but he's still only 20 years old and when you look at the heavyweight division, that's such a young age," Shalom said.

"To be able to get a fighter like Joseph with a new training team and I always felt that changed things for him in terms of his diet, approach and everything like that, we feel like we're getting a very fresh fighter, one that's not taken damage at all."