By Yuri Tarantin

Andrei Ryabinsky, promoter for former WBA 'regular' heavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin, likes his chances in winning a recently filed lawsuit against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and his promoter, Lou DiBella.

Wilder had been due to fight Povetkin on May 21 in Moscow before the Russian fighter tested positive for meldonium, and that forced the WBC to postpone the fight indefinitely for an investigation. Povetkin was tested on May 17th by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) and came up clean. He also tested negative in three tests prior to the failure in question.

Wilder was cleared to make a voluntary defense by the WBC and he is now scheduled to defend his belt against Chris Arreola on July 16th in Birmingham, Alabama.

Because of fight's postponement and Povetkin's drug test failure, Wilder and his promoter Lou DiBella filed a lawsuit against Ryabinsky and his fighter for breach of contract, with a demand to pay Wilder's guaranteed purse of over $4 million. Ryabinksy then fired back with a $34.5 million lawsuit against DiBella and Wilder, also for breach of contract and defamation.

The World Boxing Council is conducting an investigation into the matter. While the investigation plays out, Povetkin will remain in the rankings as the mandatory challenger.

Ryabinsky says the ongoing lawsuits will not prevent the mandatory fight from taking place - if the sanctioning body rules in Povetkin's favor.

"The court procedure will take a while, because this is a complex process. I think it may take a year and a half, but it has nothing to do with the organization of the fight. The filing of this lawsuit has nothing to do on whether or not the fight takes place. We have filed a lawsuit on the fact that certain people have stated a bunch of unfair nasty things to us. They must pay for that and apologize. In parallel, we are working on the organization of the fight. If now the WBC decides that Alexander is clean then we will work on the organization of the fight," said Ryabinsky.

"I have good lawyers. They will not engage in this if it is nonsense and waste their time. If they filed a claim and went through the motions, it means that the probability of victory is high enough where they can work with it. The lawyers are deeply versed in this matter."

Yuri Tarantin covers boxing for Allboxing.ru.