Frank Stea
Senior Reporter
Senior Reporter
In 2011, undefeated heavyweight contender
Robert Helenius 17-0 (11KOs) was being touted as the next big thing in the
heavyweight division. Many experts were
picking the 28 year old power puncher to succeed Wladimir Klitschko as the next
dominant champion.
A fight with Dereck Chisora in December of
2011 halted some of the momentum towards heavyweight supremacy and although
Helenius would go on to a points win over Chisora in his homeland of Helsinki,
Finland, question marks were raised over the decision.
Helenius offered no excuses for his
uninspiring performance, but it was later found out that he fought the fight
with a severely injured shoulder, an injury that has kept him out of action for
almost a full year.
‘The Nordic Nightmare’ is now scheduled to
make his long awaited return on November 10th and WBN recently
caught up with Helenius to talk about his comeback progress.
“Everything is working good now. I’m in
training camp and I am sparring,” Helenius told World Boxing News.
“I had an operation last January and it was
a big operation, I couldn’t move for 3 months.
I’m doing good sparring and I am supposed to fight on the 10th of
November in Helsinki.”
The were some reports in the media that
Helenius would never fight again as was the severity of the diagnosis and the
Finn has admitted that there were some dark days leading to his road back.
“When I had the operation, it was
heartbreaking,” he said. “I had to think positive. I learned a lot about myself and started
meditating. I think this was just meant
to happen and I’m coming back mentally stronger than ever.”
There have been reports in the news lately
that Helenius’ team are having trouble finding opponents for his return bout
because too many of the heavyweight also-rans fear the 6ft 6ins powerhouse’s
punches.
“I don’t speculate that. They do all the work behind the scenes and I
do my training. I do everything I have
to do to be fit for a fight. They’re
trying to find me opponents and stuff like that. We had a Finnish guy Jarno Rosberg who wanted
to fight me for my comeback fight but he got ill or something, I don’t really know.”
Fellow undefeated heavyweight Tyson Fury
took to the social media realm to criticize Team Helenius’ claims that nobody
wantsto fight him and Helenius weighed in on a future showdown with the controversial
former Irish champion.
“At some point of course I do (want to
fight Tyson Fury). Right now I am just trying to get back into my good form.
“ (Facing Fury), That is not a problem at
all. I think he is a good opponent in
the near future.
“I don’t fear him or anything. He’s a good boxer and I respect him. It would be a very interesting fight.”
Before his injury, Helenius seemed to be a
fight or two away from challenging Wladimir Klitschko for the undisputed world
heavyweight championship. WBN asked
Helenius if he still feels that he could land the fight with “Dr. Steelhammer”
after missing almost a year of contention.
“I really hope so. I would really like to fight him before he
retires. If the operation wouldn’t have
happened, I think I would have fought him this year. Now I have to start a little bit from scratch
to see where my conditioning is. I hope
next year to fight him if he is still fighting.”
Follow Robert Helenius on Twitter
@RobertHelenius
Frank Stea is co-presenter of ATG
Radio as well as a head reporter at WBN. Follow him on Twitter @FrankStea
and @ATGRadio.