By Sean McDaniel: WBO European light heavyweight champion Robin Krasniqi (37-2, 13 KO’s) has been picked out from the other top contenders in the light heavyweight division by promoter Frank Warren to face his fighter WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (24-0, 11 KO’s) on April 28th at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, UK.

Krasniqi, 24, has earned the shot with wins over less than impressive competition. In truth, the best fighters Krasniqi has fought have been European level opposition not on par with world class fighters. Krasniqi, to his credit, hasn’t lost a fight in the last six years since getting beaten a couple of times earlier in his career. However, it means little when you’re not fighting anyone dangerous.

Cleverly was supposed to be fighting his mandatory challenger Dmitry Sukhotsky, but Warren prefers the #4 Krasniqi for Cleverly but it’s still to this day unclear why. The WBO has given Warren and Cleverly permission to bypass his mandatory challenger for this fight with the stipulation that Cleverly must fight his mandatory within 120 days of the Krasniqi fight. But Warren wants to match Cleverly against Bernard Hopkins, the WBC light heavyweight champion in the summer in Wales. This makes you wonder what’s going to happen with Cleverly’s mandatory that he’s supposed to be fighting.

I guess that’s a road that Cleverly and Warren will have to cross once they get Krasniqi out of the way on April 28th. Cleverly and Warren really want the Hopkins fight, and I guess they’ll get that fight if they’re willing to pay Hopkins enough money to come over to Wales to take the fight. Hopkins has a fight against Chad Dawson on April 28th in their rematch. In theory, Hopkins could lose that fight and still wind up fighting Cleverly, because that’s the guy they prefer to Dawson.

The WBO will have to go along with all of this, but they probably will. They let Cleverly bypass the mandatory this time, so it’s possible they’ll let him do it again so that Cleverly can face Hopkins. At that point the whole mandatory problem will likely have been taken care of, because Hopkins will almost surely beat Cleverly and there won’t be any need for any dangerous fight against the hard hitting Sukhotsky for Cleverly.