By Vadim Pushkin
WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (37-0, 36 KOs) is hoping the World Boxing Council comes hammering down with the right punishment on Olympic gold medal winner Alexander Povetkin (31-1-0, 23 KO’s).
Last month, Povetkin was scheduled to face Bermane Stiverne (25-3-1, 21 KO’s) in a final WBC eliminator from the Ekaterinburg Expo Center in Ekaterinburg, Russia. The winner would have become the mandatory challenger to WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.
But on the morning of the fight, World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman revealed that Povetkin had tested positive for a banned substance.
Sulaiman announced on the social networks that he was informed by testing agency VADA, that Povetkin tested positive for ostarine, which is the same substance that Lucian Bute tested positive for in the aftermath of his draw against Badou Jack in April 2016 at the D.C. Armory in Washington, D.C.
The WBC revealed to BoxingScene that Povetkin's positive reading stems from a test taken by VADA on December 6th.
The World Boxing Council withdrew it's sanction of the fight, and then Stiverne pulled out and returned back home to Las Vegas.
It wasn't long before a last minute deal was reached with very late replacement Johann Duhaupas (34-3, 21KOs) - who Povetkin knocked out in six rounds.
Back in May 2016, Povetkin was scheduled to fight Wilder, but a few days before the fight was going to take place - it became known that Povetkin had tested positive for meldonium. Povetkin admitted to taking the drug in 2015, when it was still legal. The drug was officially listed as a "banned substance" in January of 2016.
The WBC conducted a very long investigation, and they cleared Povetkin and approved him to take part in the eliminator with Stiverne. This time around Povetkin is going to face a very long suspension by the WBC if the sanctioning body finds him guilty of intentionally doping.
"I really do not know what to say about him," Wilder said to Polish reporter Przemyslaw Osiak. "He doesn't interest me anymore. I hope that the WBC will make the right decision, because he got caught for doping for the second time and it hurts the sport.
"This is terrible in general. It was amazing to me that they had a fallback opponent if Stiverne didn't come to fight, and they just replaced him with another boxer."
