Anthony Joshua’s glove leaves Helenius livid in heated backstage argument

Tensions flared backstage simply hours earlier than Anthony Joshua and Robert Helenius took to the ring on the O2 Arena, London because the ‘Nordic Nightmare’ was left livid by the state of AJ’s gloves. The Finnish puncher claimed that Joshua’s gloves had insufficient padding and demanded that they have been modified earlier than their battle.

“The padding is not even the same,” Helenius’ coach mentioned throughout the pre-fight glove choice media uploaded onto Matchroom Boxing’s YouTube channel. “No it’s not, this is much thinner leather, don’t act like that. This is harder, thicker leather, it would be a big difference. Is it even an XL glove, an extra-large glove? This doesn’t feel like an XL glove.”

Helenius then walked over to examine the gloves and exploded with anger when he took them in his palms. “Press this, it is not the same,” he shouted. “Say what you want but this is f***ing bulls***. Disgusting bulls***.

“The identical gloves? My a**! F***ing bulls***. I would like precisely the identical gloves, these weren’t the identical gloves. Everybody is aware of what the f*** is happening. Everybody is aware of, it is f***ing bulls***.”

Joshua was set to face Dillian Whyte. However, the ‘Body Snatcher’ failed a pre-fight drugs test carried out by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA) leading to fight being cancelled. Matchroom scrambled to find AJ a short-notice replacement and reportedly approached Agit Kabayel, Gerald Washington and Helenius before deciding on the latter.

Helenius fought last Saturday in his first bout back since being knocked out in the first round by Deontay Wilder last October. He stopped fellow countryman Mika Mielonen in the third round in his native Finland. 

The 39-year-old is hoping to score massive upset this evening and bag himself a rematch with the ‘Bronze Bomber’. “Thank you for giving me this chance,” he said in the pre-fight press conference.

“This battle provide got here to me after my battle on the weekend. I used to be happening trip with my household however not anymore, right here we’re. We had an excellent camp behind us, and we really feel prepared. I’m able to battle, in any other case I wouldn’t be right here. I respect him, he’s an excellent fighter. It’s going to be superb. I’ve been chasing the World Title for 15 years and if you get this massive of a chance you may’t let it slip and I’ll give every little thing to win this battle.”