By Luke Furman

Russia's Alexander Povetkin has already begun preparing for a fight with Liverpool boxer David Price.

The fight is close to a done deal for March 31 at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. The contest would be part of the undercard to the WBA, WBO, IBF, IBO heavyweight unification clash between Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker.

Povetkin is currently the mandatory challenger to Joshua's WBA world title after winning a final eliminator over .

In total, the 38-year-old boxer has record of 33 wins (23 by KO) and one defeat. And the 34-year-old Price has had 26 fights, in which he scored 22 wins (18 by knockout) and suffered four defeats.

"I can not rule out anything, I hope that I will meet with Price, I am preparing for this fight," Povetkin told Vassily Konov.

"He's a tall boxer, I have no problems with tall boxers. I have to work on the best way to approach him from a short distance, break through to do my boxing and we're working on it now. It's normal for me to box abroad, I always said that for me it's easier to fight away from home."

Povetkin is not really worried about the UK crowd, the possibility of bad judges or the possibility that there will be a high volume of stories regarding his past drug test failures.

"I do not care, I do not think about it," Povetkin said, answering a question about fears that the British public might taunt him over his doping scandals.

"Judging in the UK? I think that my promoters and managers should be thinking about this. I do not pay any attention to this at all. I'm only thinking about reaching my goal. I hope that there will be a fight (with Joshua) if I win. I've already lost so many championship fights that I already do not feel like I'm going to have one."

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.