The highly anticipated WBC heavyweight title match between reigning champion Deontay Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) and Alexander Povetkin (30-1, 22 KOs) is now officially off of next week's card in Moscow, Russia. WBC president Mauricio "I'm not Shogun" Sulaiman confirmed the news on his official Twitter account.
On Friday, it was reported that Povetkin had tested positive for meldonium in a random drug test administered by VADA, which conducted the testing in the lead-up to this fight, as planned by Povetkin's promoter Andrey Ryabinskiy. While Ryabinskiy claimed that Povetkin had stopped taking the banned substance prior to WADA's ban on it at the start of 2016, one very interesting detail has emerged regarding Povetkin's previous drug tests from this month.