At a hastily-arranged presser on Monday, Ryabinsky claimed that Wilder’s trainer Jay Deas was wrong to declare the fight completely off when speaking to WBN on Sunday and that the reports on Povetkin are fabricated to some degree.
“If we don’t come to an agreement about the fight with Wilder’s team, we are ready to meet them in court,” said Ryabinsky.
“The fight is not cancelled but postponed, we are discussing a new date. There are no legal barriers for the fight. The official Wilder-Povetkin fight status is “postponed.” Everything else is just thoughts of some persons…All claims against Povetkin are legally unsound. This is just an inflated press story.
“Povetkin didn’t fail a doping test. He has 15 times lower meldonium concentration than the limit established by WADA. Now we need to pass additional tests, then we will set a new date of the fight and do it.”
Povetkin himself added: “I have nothing to fear, I am a clean fighter and I have not been taking meldonium since it was prohibited. I was perfectly ready for the fight and I am very upset with its postponement. I don’t want to say anything bad about Wilder and his team. Russian people don’t like such things.”
The WBC have already made a ruling that the fight will not happen until a full investigation has been completed, although Wilder’s team are insistent that the bout is off permanently.
Wilder is set for a break as if the fight had taken place and is not due to return to the gym for a weeks, according to Deas. That means any defense of his belt would not happen until late summer, at the earliest and the WBC may call for a new purse if Povetkin is exonerated – as Ryabinsky expects.
