Anthony Joshua dismisses Joseph Parker's doping accusations ahead of unification bout

Anthony Joshua dismissed Joseph Parker's accusations of performance enhancing drug use as the pair formally announced the first ever heavyweight unification fight on British soil.

The unassuming Parker diverted from his usual nature to label Joshua, the WBA and IBF champion, the 'King of Steroids' during an interview in his native New Zealand over the weekend.

Parker, who holds the WBO belt, had not taken kindly to remarks made by Joshua about his own physique and responded by suggesting the Londoner's Adonis-like figure is not totally natural.

It provided, if it was needed, extra spice at Tuesday's kick-off press conference at London's Dorchester Hotel when the pair met for the first time since their three-belt, £25m clash was agreed.

The pair will meet at Cardiff's Principality Stadium on 31 March in the first fight of its kind in British boxing history and the first ever heavyweight unification fight between boxers with 100 per cent winning records (when Mike Tyson met Tony Tucker in 1987, the latter had one no-contest on his record).

Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn has been locked in talks with Parker's team at Duco Events for weeks but they finally reached an agreement on a purse split understood to be around 67 per cent in Joshua's favour.

It means Parker, 26, is in line for by far the biggest pay day of his career but he opened himself up to possible legal actions with his suggestion that Joshua's career has been in some way bolstered by the use of PEDs.

Joshua, for his part, was nonplussed by the allegations but insists his hands are clean after shelling out around £30,000 on anti-doping measures for every fight.

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“I sign up three months in advance every time and I have to give them two slots in the day where I definitely will be – so they are able to drug test me,” Joshua explained in a quiet side room at the Dorchester after Tuesday's set-piece press conference.

“I am not trying to prove anything. I pay my money.

“Accusations like this used to happen to Klitschko a lot – when I used to watch him – they used to disrespect him a lot of the time about his style and performance, they used to say other things about him.

“I think he was just a phenomenal fighter and I think people just say things and they are forgotten about, I won't take it to heart. You just roll with the punches, people talk.

“But when I am sitting at home with my family it is all irrelevant. It is only relevant when I am in front of the person – and they didn't say it to my face – so I don't take it to heart.

“If I'm not clean you'll find out in this fight. If I haven't been clean for my fights you'll see me struggle against Parker because anything I've taken would be out of my system.

“You'll find out throughout this fight whether I'm actually super-human or if I have something pushing on this superhuman power he thinks I have.

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“You have to be careful, people's lives are on the line – it's not a game of golf. It's a shame that people get caught up with that sort of thing.”

Hearn added: “We pay something like £30k every fight, to make sure the fighters are tested. As soon as the contract is signed, that testing is under way, We optionally sign up for that.

“We are also with UKAD, through the British Boxing Board of Control and that's 365 days a year, random, whereabouts testing.

“The last three or four fights we have been test eight times in camp by UKAD and WADA over a 12-week period.

“We are also on 365 days a year testing for the WBA. People ask 'why is he not on the WBC [testing programme] but he is not a WBC fighter. The WBA now have 365 days testing and he pays for additional for random testing and the UKAD.

“He is the one pushing for a clean sport.”

Parker, by now on British soil and in the same building as Joshua, was quick to downplay his initial comments.

"It's one of those lines,” he said. “They accused me of being the king of pies, so that was the first thing that came into my head.

“It's one of those things you say without thinking and it wasn't the best thing to say. I feel we should just leave it in the past."

Before questioning Joshua's choice of training supplementation, Parker and his team had spent much of the past few months highlighting perceived question marks regarding the 2012 Olympic champion's chin.

While Parker claims to have never been dropped in sparring, let alone a competitive bout, Joshua was floored by Wladimir Klitschko in April and Dillian Whyte in the amateurs.

Joshua had also admitted he was decked by fellow British heavyweight David Price during a sparring session while he was still amateur, a fact which Parker and his team had brought up.

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But, amazingly, the PR-savvy Joshua revealed the real reason why he was not at his best that afternoon in Sheffield.

“I was coming up to camp training Thursday to Sunday,” he recalled. “Because I was on a development course.

“But I got nicked on the way to training camp – for just trouble – and I got out Saturday. The first person I called was [Team GB coach] Paul Walmsley because I didn't want them to think I was skipping training. There were not lawyers back then.

“I started sparring as soon as I got up there, straight from the station, I do think Price was very good at the time, very strong. And I was making too many mistakes. Those circumstances don't help when you're sparring an elite fighter.

“I had to get the train because they took my car – just to show my commitment. But what I learned was you cannot stop someone like me.

“They say you have two types of fighters; those that get dropped and

stay down. But the ones you have to be wary of are the ones who keep on coming. You just cannot stop someone like that.

“I learned it will take more than just power or durability to stop me.”