Eddie Hearn, who promotes IBF, IBO, WBA, WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (21-0, 20 KOs), is not worried about the drug testing path of Alexander Povetkin.

Joshua is going face Povetkin, who is the WBA's mandatory challenger, in the fall.

Povetkin had more than his fair share of drug testing issues in 2016.

In May of 2016, he was scheduled to fight WBC world champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) in Moscow, Russia. 

Two weeks before the contest could take place, Povetkin had failed a drugs test when he tested positive for meldonium. And then in December of the same year, he was scheduled to fight former world champion Bermane Stiverne for the interim WBC heavyweight title. And that fight was called off when Povetkin tested positive for ostarine.

But some controversy began earlier this year, when information began to circulate that Povetkin had not been drug tested during training camp when he fought David Price on the undercard of Joshua vs. Joseph Parker in March. Povetkin was only tested once when he arrived in the UK - and scored a brutal knockout over Price in five rounds.

According to Hearn, Povetkin will be tested by VADA - and the testing protocol is starting right away.

“He’s already signed to the VADA testing. There is something that we do for every fight, for every opponent from 16 weeks out, which is we pay 50 grand for additional VADA testing. So that was done for Klitschko, that was done for [Joseph] Parker, that was done for [Kubrat] Pulev [who was scheduled to fight Joshua in October 2017 but got injured], so they will be testing him six, seven, eight times in addition to the programme that he’s already sent out," Hearn told Boxing News. 

They [Povetkin’s team] were happy to put that in. That was something that they were including in their terms as well as our terms. I think that they know the history and the reputation. They want to prove that if they win, there’s absolutely no question marks. So that VADA testing I think will be underway from [this past Friday] until the fight. It’s not going to be six weeks or eight weeks, it’s starting now. That’s obviously very important to us.”