By Alexey Sukachev

According to Dmitry Ivanov, a sport director of “World of Boxing” promotional company, who also acts as a manager for 2004 Athens Olympics super heavyweight gold medalist Alexander Povetkin, negotiations between Team Povetkin and Team Wilder are under way but aren’t moving forward quickly enough. Says Ivanov in his interview with R-Sport:

“We are waiting, which terms promoters will agree to. Our goal is to provide such a camp that Sasha will be in his best shape to the date, accommodated by the parties. We aren’t excluding an intermediate fight in between. It’s unlikely, however, that Sasha will step back to the ring in September.

“We cannot speak firmly about any specific date in regards to Povetkin vs. Wilder. Once again, it all depends on negotiations. We don’t yet know if there will be a purse bid or not. We are ready to fight in any place at any time. But negotiations are rather slow, sluggish at the moment.”

Ivanov also commented on the recent rants by Team Wilder regarding use of PEDs by Povetkin and requirements for a stricter drug testing procedure. 

“Team Wilder issues media assaults, and it’s not reasonable for us to answer their every rant and statement. We need the certain result [of negotiations], the certain date. To say that the fight will take place in 2015 or 2016 is plain wrong. Anything can happen before that. Our entire team is ready for any fights possible. We know how to fight any probable opponent.”

He then added some facts regarding the present status of Povetkin, “Sasha is resting in the Altay Mountains; he restores his power there. Alexander likes to spend his spare time in Homeland. He is already in light preparations. He jogs every day, does some physical exercises. He has started such kind of training three days after the Perez fight. We usually take three months for a profound, all-around camp before the next fight.”

WBC #1 heavyweight Alexander Povetkin (29-1, 21 KOs) became a mandatory challenger for the WBC heavyweight title this May with a crushing TKO 1 win over WBC #2 Mike Perez in the final eliminator. Povetkin is promoted by the Russia’s biggest promoter—World of Boxing, ruled by Andrey Ryabinskiy.

WBC world heavyweight champion is American Deontay Wilder (34-0, 33 KOs), who has recently defended his title for the first time with the TKO 9 over unheralded optional challenger Eric Molina.