The first time Fabio Wardley ever watched Joseph Parker fight, he did so over a few beers with his mates in his local pub back in 2018.

The former personal trainer's white collar run had been an explosive one and, having firmly caught the boxing bug, Wardley had decided to chance his arm as a professional fighter.

He had kept half an eye on the rest of the scene and, when IBF and WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua set up a unification with WBO belt-holder Parker, it seemed like as good a time as any to head to The Plough.

"Boxing is not something I had paid much attention to back then," Wardley says ahead of his DAZN main event on October 25. "The first time I really paid attention to Joseph Parker was when he fought Anthony Joshua.

"I remember sitting in The Plough in Ipswich with my friends, watching the fight and just looking at it, having a few beers. I had no real thought, concept or plan watching Parker that I'm going to be after you in a few years, was just watching it as a casual and as a fan.

"But 10 years on, look where we are. It's me and him."

Much has been made of Wardley's meteoric rise from white collar boxer with zero amateur experience to the very brink of a world title. He is The Ring's No.6-rated heavyweight and currently holds the WBA interim strap.

Wardley (19-0-1, 18 KOs) beat Justis Huni in his last outing when trailing on all three cards before landing a single right hand to end the fight in the 10th round at Portman Road, only a few short ringwalks away from The Plough.

But former world champion Parker (36-3, 24 KOs) represents the toughest test of his career to date and their varying levels of experience is stark.

"He won his first world title when he beat Andy Ruiz in 2016," Wardley points out. "I was still a white-collar fighter then. So it's a bit of a funny one.

"I wasn't sitting there watching him against Joshua saying 'I could beat him' because until then I’d only been fighting other geezers from the pub too.

"I was just watching as a fan of boxing and was intrigued to watch the fight. I was purely watching as a fan, just observing, tuning in like anyone else would, not looking at him, dissecting his game and picking him apart and going, right, I can do this, this, this, this, this.

"Because at that point, I couldn't do any of that. Even if I did have a look, I wouldn't be able to pull any of it off. It has taken 10 years' worth of graft and learning for me to reach a place where I look at him and go 'all right, cool, I do see them holes, I do see them gaps.'"

At the time, Wardley was 23 years old and just three fights into his professional career but he would be lying if he said he watched Joshua and Parker box for three of the four major heavyweight belts thinking he would get his hands on them one day.

He added: "When I had my first white-collar fight, that solidified to me that I've found my thing, my sport. But more than my sport, I'd found my calling, passion, whatever you want to call it. After I had my first white-collar fight, got my hand raised, and felt the roar of the crowd, people cheering my name, I really thought that this is a buzz I could get used to.

"And then after my first pro fight again, same buzz, but different kind of scale; it had a bit more to it, and I thought, yeah, you know what, I want to go full force into this and put everything into it."

It has been a rapid ascent for Wardley since his days in the pub with his mates watching two of the world's premier heavyweights on television. He agrees that it has been unexpected, even for him, but now nearly eight years on from that night, he feels well-placed to take over as Britain's No. 1.

"It's fair to say it has been unexpected," he says. "I think for many fights in a row, people have been saying 'this is a step too far, this is the opponent that's too good, the opponent that has the skills that will beat you'. I think the way I have been manoeuvring my way through the division has been a bit unexpected.

"It's quite an opportune time with your AJs, [Tyson] Fury, even [Oleksandr] Usyk is late 30s as well. So those guys are, not to say necessarily skill-wise, but just age-wise coming to the end and kind of falling off a bit, coming to the back end.

"That leaves a gap, especially in British heavyweight boxing, for someone to stand up and go: 'I'm the guy'. Now I'm throwing my hat in the ring for that."