Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua vs. Robert Gabriel Helenius & Filip Hrgović vs. Demsey McKean RBR

After reading through the hysterical overreactions from the last few pages, I feel the need oddly enough, to come to the defense of Anthony Joshua. Which kind of makes me feel sick to my stomach. Yeah, fine... he didn't win by violent KO1 like Wilder. But as our fine scholar @Serge has already pointed out. That's because Helenius wasn't charging forward like a maniacal coked up running back, chin up in the air looking to tackle Wilder's fist with his skull. Helenius tried that approach tonight in the first minute, he felt AJs power and said... **** that, don't want to get KO1'd again, and quickly adjusted, going on the backfoot, used his range well, looked to counter with the hook and kept pumping out his jab all night. Helenius is a very heavy handed fighter, who can hurt anyone and with a guy like Joshua, who's become somewhat skittish since the Ruiz and Usyk losses. Of course he's going to be apprehensive, try to make sure he doesn't run into anything big, get KTFO, derailing one of the potential mega fights of 2024, that people have wanted to see for over a half a decade, and most likely derailing his career in the process. Would any of you done anything differently just to please the fans if you had more money than most of you will ever see in a lifetime lying on the table, just over the horizon? AJ would have to be twice as mentally ill as he already is, to just throw caution to the wind and barrel forward like a madman when he can take his time and let nature take its course. He was fully cognizant that the KO was going to come eventually, so he broke him down, took a few stiff jabs in the process, which also helped to build confidence in his chin, Robert started to tire, his defense started to lapse, and bang, out go the lights. Wins by violent KO7 instead. Mega fight preserved, a little confidence restored, the KO gives the casuals amnesia, all better.

I mean, look on the brightside, it wasn't like losing 4 of 5 rounds to Gerald Washington, 6 rounds to Artur Szpilka, 12 rounds in total to Luis Ortiz, or being walked down, bloodied up and smacked around by a featherfist in Otto Wallin.

 

Yes, Helenius was cagey and actually fought much better than expected and much smarter than he did against The Dosser. I even said at the time I couldn't believe how dumb he was to walk into the Dosser's right hand like that. Even a rank novice wouldn't make a mistake like that.

 

Yes

 

He biffed him on the snout

 

Yes. I also commented at the time how crazy dumb Breazeale was to walk into that right hand which flattened him. IIRC he threw a lead left uppercut as he was coming in leaving himself wide open to the only thing the Dosser does well