By Igor Lazorin, tass

According to the attorney for promoter Andrei Ryabinsky of World of Boxing, Olympic gold medal winner Alexander Povetkin will travel to New York City in early January to be deposed in a pair of lawsuits that are stemming from the canceled May fight with WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. 

Povetkin, who was the mandatory challenger, was scheduled to face Wilder back in May in Moscow. Ryabinsky had secured the promotional rights after winning the WBC's purse bid.

A few days before the fight, it was revealed by testing agency VADA that Povetkin had tested positive for banned substance meldonium. The fight was later postponed by the World Boxing Council.

Povetkin admitted to using the substance last year. WADA had officially listed the drug on their list of banned substances in January of this year.

Not long after the fight fell apart, Wilder and promoter Lou DiBella sued Povetkin and Ryabinsky for millions of dollars in damages. Ryabinsky and Povetkin filed a counter-suit for a whopping $34.5 million. The lawsuits are ongoing in federal court in New York City.

"This will be a preliminary hearing. Now the two sides are taking depositions from key witnesses. We question their witnesses, they question ours. Andrei Ryabinsky and Alexander Povetkin will be deposed - a standard procedure in almost every trial, which this one will be handled by a jury. They will go through this procedure at the beginning of January, and we will depose the parties for Wilder," attorney Alexy Karpenko said.

It remains to be seen if Povetkin's latest troubles will hurt his case.

On December 17th, Povetkin was scheduled to face Bermane Stiverne for the interim-WBC heavyweight title, but everything fell apart on the morning of the fight after Povetkin’s drug test from December 6th, handled by VADA, came back positive for Ostarine. The event still went forward with Povetkin knocking out very late replacement Johann Duhaupas in six rounds.

Povetkin's team is conducting their own investigation after the boxer's random drug test from December 13th - taken four days before the fight and also handled by testing agency VADA - came back clean. There was also a test done on December 15, which also came back clean.