Deontay Wilder makes winning return with first-round knockout of Robert Helenius

2 years ago 70

Deontay Wilder walks distant aft knocking retired Robert Helenius

Former heavyweight satellite champion Deontay Wilder knocked retired Robert Helenius successful the archetypal circular arsenic the 'Bronze Bomber' made a winning instrumentality to boxing successful Brooklyn, New York.

The American, 36, was stepping into the ringing for the archetypal clip since his 2nd successive knockout decision by Tyson Fury past October.

He deed Finnish hostile Helenius flush successful the look from his celebrated close manus with seconds near successful the opening round.

"It was a large night," said Wilder.

"I had to instrumentality my time. I was making him reach. I wanted to beryllium mobile, agile and hostile. I acceptable him up, allowed him to scope and past erstwhile helium reached, I attacked."

He added: "We wanted to marque this amusive again. You tin bash this truthful agelong it tin beryllium a job, conscionable thing you are doing. We made it fun. It paid disconnected large time."

Victory implicit Helenius, his erstwhile sparring partner, astatine Barclays Center improved Wilder's grounds to 43-2 with 1 gully and 42 knockouts.

The back-to-back defeats by Fury were the archetypal of Wilder's antecedently unblemished vocation and stripped him of the WBC rubric helium had held since 2015, and helium had seriously considered retirement successful the months afterwards.

Next up, helium could look chap American and erstwhile satellite champion Andy Ruiz Jr oregon Ukraine's Oleksandr Usyk, portion helium besides wants to combat Britain's Anthony Joshua believing it would beryllium "the fig 1 combat successful the world".

"Who's next? I'm down for whatever," Wilder said. "Andy Ruiz, Usyk oregon whatever. I'm back. The excitement is backmost successful the heavyweight division."