By Luke Furman

Tough heavyweight contender Amir Mansour believes Olympic gold medal winner (33-1, 23 KOs) Alexander Povetkin is one of the best heavyweights in the world, and capable of defeating anyone in the division if given the opportunity.

Povetkin's sole defeat came at the hands of Wladimir Klitschko in 2013.

On December 15 in Yekaterinburg, Povetkin won dominate twelve round unanimous decision over Germany's Christian Hammer - and that victory made Povetkin the WBA's mandatory challenger to the current cash cow of the heavyweights, Anthony Joshua (20-0, 20 KOs).

During 2016, Povetkin's career was in limbo after failing pre-fight doping tests - which caused scheduled fights with WBC champion Deontay Wilder and challenger Bermane Stiverne to get canceled.

After paying a high fine and going through a brief ban, Povetkin was once again ranked by the top sanctioning bodies.

Povetkin will be a very interested party when Joshua collides with WBO champion Joshua Parker in a planned unification for March 31 in Cardiff, Wales. The Russian boxer will be a frontrunner to fight the winner in the aftermath.

"Povetkin is a very strong boxer. He is really one of the best heavyweights, he is very strong with very good boxing technique, I believe that he can defeat any of the heavyweight champions if he gets the opportunity and if he is well prepared," Mansour said to Vasily Konov.

Mansour recently fought in Russia back in November, when he took on undefeated prospect Sergey Kuzmin for the title of WBC International heavyweight championship. The fight ended in a technical draw due to a clash of heads.

There is now talk of a rematch taking place in the coming months, when Kuzmin's cuts are fully healed.

"Sergei is a tough guy, he trained in the United States, he trained with a lot of good guys, I really respect that he agreed to get into the ring with me, that he was not scared. I was once even offered a fight against Deontay Wilder [and then he backed out]," Mansour said.

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.