Povetkin’s team expects fight with Joshua to be finalized soon

Despite negotiations continuing between Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder, Alexander Povetkin’s promoter Andrey Ryabinsky expects that his fighter will be the one facing Joshua next.

Povetkin (34-1, 24 KO) is the mandatory challenger for the WBA title, one of the three belts held by Joshua (21-0, 20 KO).

“Negotiations with Eddie are going good. We have worked together before and feel that have a good enough relationship to handle things in a partner like manner. In the next week we hope to be able to provide more information on the location of the fight and the date. I think that Joshua will follow his obligations with the WBA and perform his mandatory against Povetkin.”

As we’ve said before, it’s certainly not that Joshua-Povetkin is a bad fight. It would pit arguably the No. 1 and No. 3 heavyweight in the world today. It’s just that Joshua against Wilder (40-0, 39 KO) is an even bigger, more intriguing fight, and by quite a bit.

That said, the Joshua-Wilder dream certainly isn’t dead yet, not until it’s actually announced that Povetkin is next. So keep on hoping, it can’t hurt anything.