Anthony Joshua produced a stunning one-punch knockout victory over last minute opponent, Robert Helenius, on Saturday night, setting up a blockbuster clash with Deontay Wilder in Saudi Arabia.
After a tentative start where neither man landed anything of note, Joshua found his range and committed with the right hand to devastating effect. It was his first knockout in nearly three years and many felt it necessary to build the hype for a showdown with notorious heavy hitter, Wilder, next year.
‘The Bronze Bomber’ appeared to be of the same opinion. Speaking to October Red Youtube channel, Wilder’s trainer, Malik Scott, revealed his man’s immediate reaction to the stoppage.
“He [Wilder] was like “we needed that”.
We both said the same thing because at first it was looking like it was getting ready to go the distance so when the knockout came I called him on FaceTime and he was like “I’m glad he got that, we needed it done just like that”.
So we’re both satisfied, the fight is bigger to me than it was because of the knockout, so shoutout to AJ to going out there and getting the job done.
Most of all shoutout to Robert Helenius. It took a lot of courage to get in that ring with real killers especially on short notice. He just fought Deontay last October, had one fight back and now he was right back in there fighting Anthony Joshua.”
Wilder himself hasn’t fought since he stopped Helenius in the first round back in October last year and Scott confirmed they are hoping to get out before the Joshua fight in January.
“He’ll be more than ready for a January showdown. Last time I checked with Deontay we were looking for something for October, hopefully we can lock in an opponent and from there we’ll go and knockout AJ in January.
Andy Ruiz doesn’t want to fight Deontay so we’re looking for somebody else, someone who really wants to fight and take a chance and unfortunately somebody else who is going to be knocked out.”
Eddie Hearn confirmed that Saudi representatives were in London for the fight and were hopeful of finalising a deal in the coming days.