The unbeaten Welshman will defend his WBO light-heavyweight title against Kosovan challenger Robin Krasniqi at London's historic Royal Albert Hall on April 28, barely two months after soundly thrashing American Tommy Karpency in Cardiff.

The Krasniqi fight will be Cleverly's fourth defence of the belt he inherited last year and the Cefn Forest fighter, whose record reads 24-0 with 11 knockouts, believes he is ready to make the step up from 'alphabet' title holder to unified champion.

He added: "It's definitely a case of getting the successful defence done on April 28 and then we can look for a big showdown in the summer in a big unification fight, in Wales, hopefully, against one of the American guys.

"That is the ambition, the goal."

A fight between Cleverly and veteran superstar Hopkins has gradually moved closer to becoming a reality, with the fighters' promoters recently strengthening their working relationship.

It is a match-up Cleverly is desperate to secure, with his fight against Krasniqi (37-2, 13KOs) on the same night as WBC champion Hopkins' rematch with Chad Dawson.

Best event

"I think Hopkins is the fight that would make the best event," he said.

"I think more of the boxing fans know Bernard Hopkins. He's in the history after becoming the sport's oldest world champion and he's still a great fighter. And I know that would be a great event and a great fight.

"The promoters have got together and most notably, myself and Hopkins has been highly talked of. That would be special, to bring an event like that to Wales.

"So now that the promotional companies are talking, it's basically up and running now and just a matter of putting things together. So it's a great start."

Looking ahead to the fight with Krasniqi, Cleverly admits he would normally prefer to take a bit more time out between scraps but wants to rack up another defence before moving onto bigger and better things.

Much earlier

"This next defence has come much earlier than expected," he said.

"I was expecting a nice holiday but obviously, given this opportunity to defend my world title in London, I grabbed it with both hands.

"It's a short training camp - short and sweet - but I'm fit from my last fight anyway so we'll just tick over now until the fight.

"Ideally I'd like much more time off. After a fight I like to leisure around and go on holiday and at least have a couple of months off.

"But this opportunity came up and it was my decision whether I wanted to fight or not so I went for it because it's in London, in the Royal Albert Hall, which is a traditional old venue, and it's a chance to make another defence of my world title."