Malik Scott suspects that Deontay Wilder will encounter a far better version of Robert Helenius than when Scott saw them spar at Wilder’s gym in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Scott wasn’t always Wilder’s head trainer when Wilder sparred against Helenius, but he watched their sessions intently, most recently last September, while Wilder prepared for his third fight with Tyson Fury. The heavy-handed Wilder often had his way with Helenius in the gym, but Scott realizes that Helenius is one of those boxers that rarely looks good during sparring.

The retired heavyweight envisions the Helenius that stopped Adam Kownacki twice squaring off with Wilder on October 15 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

“Deontay has sparred Helenius,” Scott recalled. “I was there, and I saw how well Deontay did with him, but Helenius is not a good spar. He doesn’t spar very well. Anybody could have an OK day with him. He’s very technically sound and he knows how to protect himself, but he’s not a good spar.

“He’s a good fighter when the lights are on. When it’s time to throw a monkey wrench into the apple cart and to upset people, this is when he comes alive. And this makes him more dangerous in this fight because if anyone is going to train as hard as they ever trained and be more alert than they’ve ever been, [it’s] when they’re fighting Deontay Wilder. He brings the best out of his opponents.”

Neither Tuscaloosa’s Wilder nor Finland’s Helenius have fought since last October 9 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Fury knocked Wilder cold in the 11th round to emphatically end their compelling, competitive third fight for the WBC heavyweight title that night. Wilder (42-2-1, 41 KOs) floored Fury twice in the fourth round, but he suffered three knockdowns of his own and couldn’t get up from Fury’s devastating right hand in the 11th round of a ESPN/FOX Sports Pay-Per-View main event.

Wilder, who will turn 37 a week after he faces Helenius, has been stopped by England’s Fury (32-0-1, 23 KOs) in each of his last two fights.

The 38-year-old Helenius (31-3, 20 KOs) battered Brooklyn’s Kownacki (20-3, 15 KOs) on the Fury-Wilder undercard until their one-sided second fight was stopped in the final minute of the sixth round. Helenius previously upset Kownacki by fourth-round technical knockout in March 2020 at Barclays Center.

Wilder is listed by most sportsbooks as at least a 7-1 favorite to win a 12-round fight that’ll headline a FOX Sports Pay-Per-View show.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.