Alexander Povetkin's promoter threatens legal action if Deontay Wilder completely pulls out of title fight

At today's press conference held by Andrey Ryabinsky, the promoter of Alexander Povetkin, Ryabinsky said that Deontay Wilder's trainer was wrong in announcing that the fight was completely off, while maintaining that Povetkin has done nothing wrong. Ryabinsky even went so far as to suggest that he'll be taking Wilder's team to court should they back out of the fight altogether.

"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."

Of course Ryabinsky and his fighter face some potential lawsuits themselves should this fight not come off due to Povektin's failed drug test. Based on Ryanbinsky's winning purse bid of $7.15M, Wilder was set to earn a purse of over $4M -- but if there's no fight, no one gets paid, and Wilder would likely seek a legal remedy because of that.

But in the meanwhile, Ryabinsky stands firm that Povetkin didn't really 'fail' a drug test, and still expects to two fighters to get it on:

"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."

So, as you might expect, the fight is still up in the air. Povektin's side is expecting a rescheduled date, Wilder's side believes the fight is not happening at all, and the WBC won't make an official ruling on whether it will happen until they complete their full investigation. Yay boxing!