It’s been a pretty tough time getting to the rematch between Alexander Povetkin and Dillian Whyte, with the latest delay moving the fight from March 6 to March 27, but Russian veteran Povetkin tells Sky Sports he’s stayed sharp and ready to go:
“I feel fine. I’m ready to fight. The team and I are in a good mood. We are ready for the fight, we want this fight. … Anything can happen. I reacted normally [to the postponement]. What can you do? We made some changes and go on.”
Povetkin (36-2-1, 25 KO) and Whyte (27-2, 18 KO) met last August on the Matchroom Fight Camp series, and was down twice in the fourth round and looking ready to go, before he stunned Whyte with a monster left uppercut for the fifth round knockout. That made it one of the most exciting and talked-about fights of 2020.
The two were initially meant to rematch in November, but Povetkin was hospitalized with COVID, which pushed the fight to January. Povetkin’s COVID recovery moved the fight again, but it also would have been postponed because the BBBofC wound up shutting down UK boxing for the month anyway.
They’re finally set to go (knock on wood!) in Gibraltar as of now, where the 41-year-old Povetkin will look to repeat his upset, and the 32-year-old Whyte will try to get some revenge and put himself firmly back into the world title picture. Povetkin will be defending the interim WBC title, which he won last time, and while interim belts never guarantee anything with boxing sanctioning bodies, it certainly keeps the winner on the inside track.