Former World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight champion David Haye has questioned Anthony Joshua’s performance in his win against Finnish boxer Robert Helenius on Saturday night.
Joshua produced a seventh round knockout win against 39-year-old Helenius to set up a blockbuster fight with Deontay Wilder.
Helenius, who stepped in on short notice for Dillian Whyte after a failed a drugs test, produced a disciplined display to frustrate Joshua for several rounds.
But Joshua eventually caught Helenius with a clubbing right hand in the seventh round, suddenly ending the fight.
Despite the win, Haye was left unimpressed, positing that Joshua cannot put up such display in his anticipated fight against Wilder or his two-time conqueror Oleksandry Usyk.
“I’d like to see him of the calibre of Helenius, and treat him like Wilder, you can’t stand there jabbing against Wilder,” Haye said.
“It doesn’t work against Wilder. Would that performance have beaten Usyk? No.”
Speaking on his win, Joshua stated that his target was a knockout win in the early rounds.
“If I could have done it earlier, I would have,” he said.
“It’s a breaking down job. There’s many ways to skin a cat and I did it in the end.”
1 Comment
The most important thing is that he won via knockout. The time he did it wasn’t necessary.