By William Mackay: Frank Warren, the promoter for WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly, is in talks with the WBO to try and see if they’ll agree with his choice of #4 WBO contender Robin Krasniqi as Cleverly’s next challenger on April 28th at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington, London, UK. The World Boxing Organization has already said no to the idea of sanctioning that fight given that Cleverly still hasn’t faced his #1 mandatory challenger after a nearly a year as the champion.

A decision could be made in a next day or two by the WBO as to whether they’ll change their mind about Krasniqi. If not, then Cleverly has a very tough fight on his hands with his #1 mandatory challenger Dmitry Sukhotsky. That would be a real pick-em fight because Sukhotsky has the power to KO Cleverly and he does well against fighters that come straight at him like Cleverly would be doing with his chin leading the way. Krasniqi is perhaps the most idea opponent you could think of for Cleverly, because he’s ranked enough to where Cleverly won’t look bad for ignoring his mandatory challenger, but at the same time Krasniqi is so badly out-matched that he compares pretty much along the same lines as Cleverly’s last opponent Tommy Karpency in actual skills. Hopefully the WBO says no to this fight because it’s disappointing when fighters skip over their mandatory fights to face weak opposition like this.

Cleverly was given permission to fight little known overmatched fringe contender Tommy Karpency last February with the condition that Cleverly would fight his mandatory challenger within 120 days from that fight. But Krasniqi is now the one that Cleverly’s promoter wants instead of the number #1 mandatory Sukhotsky for some reason. There’s nothing special about Krasniqi. He doesn’t have a fan base, isn’t highly respected by boxing fans, and isn’t even talked about. Why Cleverly’s promoter wants this fight is odd to say the least. Krasniqi can’t punch and has never fought a 1st tier opponent. He arguably should be ranked much lower than #4, perhaps number 50 in the division or lower. #4 is a very, very kind of ranking by the WBO for Krasniqi, much higher than one would think when looking at him fight.