According to multiple reports from around the boxing world the mandated heavyweight title fight between WBC champ Deontay Wilder and former Russian champ Alexander Povetkin is on. The agreed to date and location is May 21st in Moscow, Russia. Moments later, Dan Rafael of ESPN tweeted the news.
The challenger Alexander Povetkin will have the crowd on his side during this fight as it is taking place in his home country. Povetkin has fought most of his fights in Russia, and his last six dating back to May of 2013.
It is met with much relief that Wilder-Povetkin has a date in place, especially considering the fact that many thought Wilder had no intentions of ever fighting Povetkin and that he would vacate his WBC belt rather than travel to Russia.
However, this announcement shows that Deontay Wilder has every intention of going to Russia and battling Povetkin in what will be the toughest test of his career by far. The fight will most likely be on the PPV platform in Russia, and will be on Showtime Championship Boxing in the U.S.
The rumored co-main event for this card is a cruiserweight unification fight: the WBA Russian champ Denis Lebedev vs the Argentinean IBF champ Victor Emillio Ramirez are already set to fight. As of now, that fight is scheduled to take place in late April, but there have been talks of pushing it back a month in order to boost the interest in Russia for the Wilder-Povetkin card.
Wilder-Povetkin has to be considered one of the most highly anticipated fights in the heavyweight division, and we should all be counting down the days to that fight. It is true that a lot can happen in two months that could postpone or delay the fight, and we should never be certain that a fight will happen until the opening bell rings on fight night: but for now, we should sit back, relax and start getting used to the fact that Wilder-Povetkin is happening.
