The Blow of the Bronze Bomber

By Tony Öhberg | October 22, 2022, 8:00 pm | Feature, Boxing

 

Robert Helenius, or the “Nordic Nightmare,” suffered a shattering loss over the Atlantic on October 16. His U.S. counterpart, Deontay Wilder, known as the “Bronze Bomber,” ended the bout in the first round with a hard right, sending the most prominent Finnish heavyweight boxer on the canvas and casting a shadow on Helenius’ career.

 

 

First things first: Finnish heavyweight boxer Robert Helenius’ jaw is not made of glass. Only a few pugilists have been able to send the Nordic Nightmare to the canvas, typically when the two-meter-tall Finn had not been feeling at his best but had taken the fight anyway, for one reason or another.

Nonetheless, the former WBC heavyweight champion, Deontay Wilder, 37, from Alabama, U.S., knocked him out in the first round only in two minutes and 57 seconds with a short right hand thrown from his chest early last Sunday morning (Oct. 16) — just days after Helenius swore in an interview with Finland Today that “you’re going to see the best version of me ever!”

While people close to Helenius said that he had been suffering from the flu a few weeks before and that he was clearly nervous in the first round at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, it does not make much difference to the fact that Helenius’ right cross had penetrated Wilder’s defense and was only about 10 centimeters away from his jaw. But then Helenius was intercepted with an explosive short blow just before the bell rang.

Helenius’ back leg gave up from the bone-crushing impact and he fell on the mat, hitting the back of his head on the canvas. He lost consciousness, laying stiff, eyes wide open.

“It came so fucking fast,” said Markus Sundman, Helenius’ manager, to this journalist later after the fight. Sundman saw the action from the corner of the ring.

The punch can be traced back to the 1970s when martial arts legend Bruce Lee had taught a similar blow to a taekwondo master who in turn showed “the accu-punch” to the late Muhammad Ali, considered by many the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. Ali used it to knock out U.K. heavyweight champ Richard Dunn in 1976. Interestingly, Dunn, also, is nearly two meters in height.

Wilder, if anyone, in the top heavyweight game, was the man to make the best of the punch that’s done instantly when no thought is given to it.

Helenius was later able to walk off on his own power, and he went to the hospital for a checkup. The x-ray of the skull and the MRI scan showed no signs of fractures or injuries.

But in the press conference following the fight, Wilder got emotional while worrying if Helenius would come out uninjured.

“I wanted Robert to reach, and once he reached I teached,” Wilder said with a straight face while describing the action leading to the knockout.

Then Wilder broke into tears while thinking about the possible aftermath of knocking out his opponent unconscious:

“My heart goes out to him, and I hope he’s able to go back to his family. We don’t know if Robert is going to be the same after this. I just did a job,” he bewailed while a man in a white jacket wearing a diamond chain necklace massaged his shoulders.

Later Wilder visited Helenius and his trainer, Johan Lindström, in a hotel suite.

In video footage that was published on YouTube, both men shared long hugs and then Helenius said the words that made headlines in the Finnish press: “I have to say, I’m out. I am 38 years old. I have been doing this for 25 years. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to fight.”

 

From left:  Karl Helenius, the father, Robert Helenius, the boxer, and Johan Lindström, the trainer, posing in 2016. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY

Speaking after the fight with Helenius’ father and former trainer, Karl, he stressed that his son is a better boxer than he looked on TV. “In my opinion, Wilder is not a really great boxer, but his right hand is dangerous,” he said.

Karl Helenius pondered on other possible “reasons” for Robert’s loss, but did not find many without “sounding like a bitter man.”

He, nonetheless, expressed concern for his son’s career at the top level while fighting “in countries where they don’t properly test for doping.”

“Robert has been part of a voluntary program for doping testing since he was 17,” Karl Helenius said.

This means that on short notice, Robert has to be available for inspection, and he must let the testing organization know in advance of his whereabouts should he decide to stay elsewhere than his home in Åland Islands.

“I remember one time when we were out with the children in an indoor adventure park at the Åland Islands, and the testers from Germany had arrived on the island and let us know that we have less than an hour to be available for a doping test,” Karl Helenius said. “In the end, I looked after the kids, and tests for performance-enhancing drugs were taken in the backroom of the adventure park.”

This type of rigorous testing, according to Helenius’ father, is unusual at the top level, and sometimes the results may show up in extreme ways. “When a boxer is high on cocaine, he can take two fights a day and then the next day cry and say that he will stop boxing!” Karl Helenius exclaimed.

In the worst case, facing a fighter on drugs who has learned to mask them, or has just stopped using steroids, can send the opponent to eternal sleep.

Manager Sundman said that in Wilder’s case both fighters “pissed in the same cup” and came out clean. “We have no reason to believe that any foul play had occurred regarding this bout,” Sundman said.

With all this being said, it’s clear that Robert Helenius was prepared to win in a fight that could change the course of his career in, what his team believed, only a few rounds.

Sadly, the risk he took by putting everything at stake with a deep lunge while staying slightly open and aiming to connect with his right hand that had enough knockout power to send Wilder off the ropes turned against him. Helenius’ next match could have very well been a shot at the world title, or he could have found himself in a deciding match before it.

This type of boxing is not for those with the faint of heart. The viewers and fans — even Helenius — will just have to live with that.

As far as the future of Helenius’ career is considered, there’s nothing anyone can say until he has gathered his thoughts and found some perspective.

His father does not know how long it will take for his son to recover mentally. Neither will he push Robert to a decision. Manager Sundman said that he has an agreement with Robert that they will not make any career-defining decisions until Robert is ready. It can take a month. Or two.

And we will just have to wait.

Robert Helenius

  • Weight (October 14, 2022): 114.9 kilos
  • Born: January 2, 1984 
  • Height: 200 centimeters
  • Reach: 201 centimeters
  • Total Fights: 35
  • Record: 31-4 (20 KOs)

Deontay Wilder

  • Weight (October 14, 2022): 97.2 kilos
  • Born: October 22, 1985
  • Height: 201 centimeters
  • Reach: 211 centimeters
  • Total fights: 46
  • Record: 43-2-1 (42 KOs)

Deontay Wilder poses in the photograph at the top. Picture: CC BY-SA 2.0

Author