WBO refuse to sanction Cleverly fight!

Cleverly with Warren and WBO world title.

The World Boxing Organisation have announced that will not allow Nathan Cleverly to fight Robin Krasniqi in his 4th defence of the WBO light-heavyweight title. The fight was set to take place at the Royal Albert Hall on April 28th and it would have been the first world title fight there in over a decade, but now it could just be a non-title fight.

Dmitry Sukhotsky.

The WBO gave Cleverly permission to fight Tommy Karpency as long as his next defence was against their mandatory challenger Dmitry Sukhotsky. They also said the fight must take place within 120 days of his fight with Karpency who he beat on points on February 25th.

Cleverly's promoter Frank Warren announced the Krasniqi clash during a London press conference at lunchtime today but the WBO issued a statement on their website almost immediately after.

The could go ahead as just a non-title fight but Warren has said many times that he wanted it to be the first world title fight at the Royal Albert Hall in over a decade. To do this he must change the opponent to 30 year old Russian Sukhotsky.

Bernard Hopkins will fight Chad Dawson for the WBC world light-heavyweight title on the same day. If a world title fight Cleverly is organised then it will be likely that the winners of the two fights will meet in a big summer clash which will earn Cleverly and Warren megabucks!