John Wayne Parr is an Australian boxer and kickboxer also known as “JP” and “The Gunslinger”. Best known for competing in Muay Thai boxing, he has won an incredible 10 World Championship titles during his career across various disciplines. He gained wider fame after finishing runner-up in the 2008 reality series The Contender Asia, which was broadcast in Australia, the UK, and the USA. He was also the subject of the 2011 documentary Blessed with Venom and has provided fight coordination for films such as The Violent.
Parr hails from Australia’s Gold Coast. His interest in combat sports began at 11 when he began training in taekwondo. Aged just 12, he won a silver medal at the state championships, but within a couple of years, had turned to kickboxing. By his late teens, he had won both the national and South Pacific championship titles. In the mid-1990s, he relocated to Thailand, the home of Muay Thai boxing, to train. He remained there until the end of the decade, establishing himself as one of the top fighters in the country (he was voted Thailand’s Best Farang Fighter in 1997) and gained the nickname “The Gunslinger” thanks to his signature move of imitating a gunfighter drawing his weapon at the end of the pre-match ritual.
When Parr returned to Australia, he opened a gym and began training in traditional boxing alongside kickboxing. In 2000, he won two major Muay Tai World Championship titles; the following year, he won the Australian Boxing Middleweight Championship. In 2004, he was named Fighter of the Year by two leading magazines. He still competes at a high level today.
