Actually, no ... Povetkin's manager said after the Perez fight that he would probably not fight Wilder next ... and he only became the mandatory contender a little over two months ago, not like he's Marvin Hagler or Archie Moore waiting for years and years.
Well, your point seems to be wrong. Povetkin has started that he is disappointed with the delay about the Wilder fight, and said that he initially didn't plan to have any tune-up. "I'm a bit disappointed that the Wilder fight is a subject of rescheduling. I want to collide with him immediately; we didn't plan for any tune-up/preliminary bouts, but it happens this way (in boxing)." You can find this interview on the scene. Turns out that the fans were fully right to be critical of Wilder stalling the Povetkin fight and instead going on to fight the lower level guys. I just hope when the Duhaupas fight is over, that Wilder and his team would come up with some new tricks in order to stall or avoid the fight any further.
Partly, but partly I believe they are laying the groundwork for a unification fight, by pushing it to the time of Wlad Fury, so that Wlad can negotiate with Wilder. Everybody keeps talking about Wilder Povetkin, like its what should and will happen after the stay busy fights, but I think it will be Wlad/Wilder. WBC has authority in their rules to postpone a mandatory if the alternative is a unifying fight such as that. (And before anyone says that's a bad thing 1. Wlad deserves a quicker shot at WBC than Povetkin out of sheer career 2. He deserves it for beating the prior WBC mandatory, Bryant Jennings 3. Wilder Wlad would be more interesting than Wilder Povetkin or Povetkin Wilder)
Really? I was thinking Haymon is all about purse bids, considering he advised Beterbiev to not take a very fair offer from Kovalev in hopes of going to purse bid. I think they are hoping Povetkin's people bid a stupid amount of money like they did for the Klitschko fight. Anyway, its a shame we gotta wait a whole year in between quality fights. Thank you Mr. Haymon