Robert Helenius says he needed “better training” behind him before facing Anthony Joshua but took the last-minute offer for the opportunity.
The rangy Finn was approached in the locker room seven days before losing to AJ in a one-punch knockout in the seventh. He’d just got out of the ring from his return following a 177-second wipeout by Deontay Wilder.
Nonetheless, Joshua wanted to fight Helenius despite not being in the correct shape. Helenius admitted he hesitated about accepting but eventually said he would step in for Dillian Whyte.
Losing to a haymaker from Joshua when running out of steam, Helenius is since beating himself up about taking the fight.
Robert Helenius in no shape to fight Anthony Joshua
“I’m a little heartbroken about that fight. But what could I do with that short notice? I would have done better with a better training camp behind me,” Helenius told FightHub TV.
On turning down the clash when he first got told of an AJ approach, Helenius added: “At first, I was, ‘Hell, no,’ but I thought about it for five to ten minutes, and I was like, ‘Let’s do this.”
“This was my opportunity to do this. But we only had an okay camp for the [last] opponent [compatriot Mika Mielonen] in Finland. It wasn’t like on any world stage or in the vicinity of Anthony Joshua, so we didn’t train for twelve rounds of hardcore boxing.
“We took that fight to see if I had the motivation to keep training and doing this job. The feeling I got when I was offered the Joshua fight was incredible and scary at the same time.
“It’s a crazy difference because it was an opponent from Finland, and he wasn’t even a Finnish champion. He just had six fights behind him.
“We took that fight just to feel how I feel about boxing. [The offer from AJ] was in the locker room after the fight. I still had my wraps on [when it came].
“I was pouring with sweat after the fight, and my manager told me, ‘Yeah, they offered a fight against Joshua. But I was like, ‘What, are you serious? No, it can’t be.
“I haven’t even had time to think about the last fight I just had five minutes ago. What is this crazy s***?'”
Why did Helenius accept the Joshua fight?
On why he gave the green light despite not being in shape, Helenius concluded: “I thought this could be my real big opportunity.
“But yeah, now afterward, I feel a little bit sorry that I didn’t train boxing longer for Mielonen. [If I did] I would have been in a better shape and could have gone all rounds with him [Joshua].
“I felt I felt good in the fight in the first six rounds. But after that, the reaction time and everything goes down.
“I just had like four-round sparring in the training camp. Of course, we did it three times a week for two weeks, four to five rounds of sparring sessions. It wasn’t like I was conditionally prepared to concentrate twelve rounds at that level of fighting.
“I just feel sorry that I didn’t do the proper training camp that I thought I did. Of course, it was proper for that fight in Finland, but not at that level that I had the box one week after.”
