Alexander Povetkin knows what it feels like to get blown out in front of a sold-out crowd.
Unfortunately for the Russian, it was his last world heavyweight title shot to date against Wladimir Klitschko in 2012.
Povetkin, 36, was knocked down four times en-route to a unanimous decision rout, as the Ukrainian retained his titles.
Now with the winner of the scheduled Jan. 16 title defense between WBC World heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (35-0, 34 KO’s) and Artur Szpilka (20-1, 15 KO’s) mandated to fight him, the Russian is back to training, and working on becoming a world champion once again.
“I resumed training. I run, jump rope, work on the iron. In the last two years, the training process has changed for the better. Earlier, my coaches, Valery Below, Teddy Atlas, and Kostya Tszyu, had a lot of knowledge, but they would not listen to me. They had something planned in advance, while Ivan Kirpa always gives me advice. And there is no problem with the fact that this is my friend. “We joke, go to dinner at a restaurant, but when we train, he is my teacher, and I am his student,” said Povetkin in an interview with Bokser.org.
Povetkin went on to say while training camp tires him out physically, he feels mentally strong, unlike the feeling he felt leading up to the Klitschko fight.
“When I was training to fight with Klitschko, I was really exhausted physically and mentally as much,” he added.
The Klitschko loss stands as his only professional defeat, yet the Ukrainian, who set the third-best mark in heavyweight title history with 18 consecutive title defenses, lost unexpectedly in a blowout to UK’s Tyson Fury in November.
When asked for his thoughts on what led to the Klitschko loss, Povetkin did not have an answer.
“It’s hard to tell. You should really be asking the same of Wladimir,” Povetkin said. “Tyson is tall, and strong physically, so Klitschko could not implement many of his tactics. Another fight will show the lessons learned from the loss, because in my opinion, Klitschko is still number one.
“Wilder is a strong boy who can bang. After that [Wilder-Szpilka], we will start negotiations for our fight. So far, Wilder cannot be compared to Klitschko, but certainly is a good, tall, and strong competitor, because he is the world champion.”
– Ryan O’Hara @OHaraSports
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