Heavyweight contender Christian Hammer has given high praise to Olympic gold medal winner Alexander Povetkin (33-1, 23 KOs).
Povetkin dominated Hammer over twelve rounds on December 15th in Russia in a WBA, WBO heavyweight eliminator.
In the upcoming year, the Russian boxer has the option to go after WBA, IBF, IBO Anthony Joshua or WBO world champion Joseph Parker.
Joshua and Parker are in talks to fight each other in the coming months in a high stakes unification.
Povetkin will be in line to fight the winner of that match and Hammer is hoping that he gets the job done.
"I showed my maximum ability [against Povetkin]. I fought against an excellent boxer, this is a good experience for me. Neither one of us took any particular risks in the fight," Hammer said.
"A rematch? No. Now Povetkin has become the mandatory challenger and we wish him all the best. We hope that Alexander will beat Joshua or Parker and becomes the champion. I'm crossed my fingers that he does it."
Povetkin has now won seven in a row since suffering his last career defeat, a decision loss to Wladimir Klitschko in 2013.
He previosuly held the WBA "regular" heavyweight title, which he captured in 2011 with a deision win over Ruslan Chagaev and then lost when he faced Klitschko, who was the WBA's "super" champion.
After getting five knockouts in a row, Povetkin has gone the twelve round distance in his last two outings - although they were one-sided wins.
He hopes to return to the ring in the first quarter of 2018.
The boxer recently paid the World Boxing Council a fine of $250,000 for failing two pre-fight drug tests in 2016 - which led to the cancellation of fights with WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder in May 2016 and a December 2016 WBC final eliminator with Bermane Stiverne.
Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.
