Bernard Hopkins wants Danny Green
Posted: 11 Dec 2009, 06:21
Over on boxingtalk they have this.
GL: BoxingTalk recently broke the news of Team Danny Greene reaching out to you. We were unable to reach you last night, but I ran the info based on my source. Is it true? What can you tell us about your talk with Danny Greene's people? "It is absolutely true. I didn't recognize their number, but now that the communication has begun, I'm always excited whenever somebody wants to fight Bernard Hopkins and treat me with respect, something I'm not getting from the networks over here in the States. I'm always up for a challenge and as far as I'm concerned Danny Greene took food out of my mouth. So now, I'm willing to take food out of his mouth and I can already say that they're talking the right language to make me happy."
GL: Obviously you consider Greene a viable option, correct?
Bernard Hopkins: "Absolutely. My whole thing is, me and Roy Jones were going to have a clash, somewhere in March and that got derailed. The guy who derailed me from my opportunity is reaching out to me so I think it's a no brainer for anybody with a promotional bone in his body. From a TV, marketing point of view, this is the best fight that can happen. I would have a lot of people wondering if I would fall to the fate of Roy Jones, or will I conquer another giant. I'm not talking size, even though this guy is bigger and cruiserweights are 200 pounds, I'm talking stature and popularity. Danny Greene is who he is over there. He fills the place up and they have the budget to satisfy me. The last time I was out of the country was 1994 when I attempted to take the title from Segundo Mercardo, that wound up being a draw. I would up getting the fight four months later and wound up winning the titles."
GL: I haven't spoken to Roy since his loss, but I've heard rumblings that he made as much as $4M for the Greene fight. Based on your discussions, are the indications that you make more fighting Greene than Chad Dawson?
BH: "I would make more money fighting Danny Greene over there in a whole new situation, than any three or four fights that have been brought to me through Richard about their licensing fees. Not only Chad Dawson, let's not just talk about him, every fight that was mentioned to me, the risk was ten times higher than the reward. At the end of the day, the Chad Dawson offer wasn't respecting my legacy. I'm going where the money is at and for me that seems to be not in America. For somebody else it might be different, but I can only speak on me right now. I gotta do what I gotta do. It's not personal, it's business. When people do to me they would tell me it's not personal, and it's not, so I agree. I know how to handle my business.
'I've been handling my business 90% of my career. Some people including yourself sometimes thought I was crazy and thought I was managing myself wrong. Maybe crazy as a fox, but not crazy as a fool. Negotiations are happening right now. I manage myself and I continue to look out for me and my family first. I have no problem talking to anybody. I'm not restricted to talk to or negotiate with anybody. If I don't want to deal with somebody I have the luxury of dumping them off to Richard Schaeffer. Sometimes things come to me where I got to deal with it right there. I'm glad I have the smarts and experience from going through the bullshit from earlier in my career. I don't have to talk to a big brother to find out what's going on. I'm going to show these so called businessman that I can do my own things just like I did eight-ten years ago. At the end of the day, I'm going to take the bull by the horns and make a big fight happen.
"At the end of the day I warned everybody out there that in 2010 I'm going to have the boxing world scratching their head. They might be able to stop me over here, but there's a whole new world in Austrailia and they got plenty of money over there baby. If they want to buy the rights here in America, I'd sell them so they can show it."
GL: Do you think Greene is as historically significant as Dawson?
BH: "Of course, does a crackhead like blacktop? How can he not be when they're talking what they're talking for Chad Dawson. They're talking $3M or $6-7M it's a no brainer. It's all about the Benjamins. Chad Dawson has a belt and he's all about the belts. I had that and was undisputed for 10 years. It's all about the Benjamins. Show Me The Money!
GL: Does saying that you're your own man mean you will not be involving Golden Boy?
BH: "I'll tell you this, the call came to my phone. They called my phone and I talked to them. I will continue to make things happen and I will bring Golden Boy in once I get the deal done. Then I will bring them in to make sure the T's are crossed and I's are dotted. I will not leave the promotion in their hands. You gotta have a team that works. This part is easy. It's called negotiating my value. Once this gets written in stone, then I bring in the troops to do the leg-work. I'm a veteran, I'm the Capo in boxing, I'm the Don. I'm a free agent. Golden Boy has no bones with that and they know that. I don't have a contract as a fighter to them, I'm loyal as a figher and I will continue to be loyal, but when things come to me I gotta deal with them and handle. I'll let them do the footwork like I'd let anyone else do the footwork. At the end of the day Golden Boy stands on they work for the fighters, the fighters don't work for Golden Boy."
GL: What kind of date could we be looking at?
BH: "Whatever date they got available. You have to remember that we're not on American HBO time. This is the beauty of this, it could happen whenever. I know the risk of fighting in his country and I have no problem with that, but the reward outweighs the risk and that's the beauty of this, so stay stay tuned to Boxingtalk, the only place to get it straight from Bernard Hopkins!
Oh yeah and MORE exposure of course 
