“I don’t understand why Universum just called off the whole show instead of asking me to jump in and fight Luan! I’d have accepted in a heartbeat and would not even have waisted much time talking about money. Or does Luan himself not want to know? I have a feeling everybody knows I would knock him out, so its better business to freeze me out. It’s ironic that a guy by the name of Luan, which means lion, behaves like a pussycat, but what can you do? I’d fight anyone, but obviously anyone doesn’t want to fight me!”

Obviously, the manager believes Universum Box-Promotion would have had enough influence with the European Boxing Union (EBU) to get the currently # 17-ranked ‘Dutch Sonny Liston’ Hersisia approved, considering the short notice and the admitted willingness of Fight Production to agree to every defence stipulation put on them. More interesting, however, is the second statement of Schroeder, which goes back to the days when the German manager handled Krasniqi’s career from 1997 until 2000 together with Frank Maloney and Panos Eliades. The story goes that Krasniqi told Schroeder after Hersisia’s third pro fight something across the lines of “You know that this guy won’t crack it!”. The manager can be forgiven to want to prove his better judgement to the former European champion.

“Richel beating Luan would also prove to the EBU the worth of their ratings committee, because without further elaboration to rank him as low as they do is a travesty and shows how well these guys are ‘taken care of’ by the big promoters,” Schroeder does not hold back once he’s in the swing.