Last Friday Golden Boy Promotions issued a press release regarding a "MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT" Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins were supposed to make in Beverly Hills today. According to Hopkins, someone from Golden Boy jumped the gun by issuing the release "prematurely" because he's yet to make any commitments regarding his future plans.  Hopkins says there will be no major announcements with De La Hoya today, later this week or maybe even ever. Members get the low down directly from the pound for pound king's mouth, only on Boxingtalk.com!"

The undisputed middleweight champion told Boxingtalk.com, "Right now my ear is open to anybody but one person promotionally, and it's not open to that one person because we're in court. And that's the only reason I wouldn't talk to this guy (King). You've got to clean up one tab before you talk about a future tab."

Speaking of court, Boxingtalk.com pointed out to Hopkins that we've been hearing rumblings that things haven't been going to well for him in his arbitration with Don King.

Hopkins said, "I'm not going to get caught up with what people out there are saying. I could care less. I believe that every reporter that feels the need to come and see, to my knowledge the arbitration is open to the public and I'm putting the call out for anybody who cares to listen, to be in New York around the time of the hearing. I encourage everyone to hear the testimony and evidence."

"What better way to get the news? People should be able to go there and see what is. They don't need to see what I have to say, Don has to say or anyone else has to say. All they need to do is show up, see the evidence and watch the chips fall where they may."

"I might come out on the negative end of that stick, but I'm willing to take that chance and put everything out there."

"As long as it's legally right for them to be there, I give everyone an open invitation to show up and watch Bernard Hopkins Vs. DKP.  I can't do no better than that Greg. We could sit here for hours and talk about the paperwork that you got, and the bout agreements, but the bottom line is this, we're going full steam ahead. I've gotten a lot of great tesitmony and the decision will be made in court, not on the internet."

Hopkins On His Promotional Status:

"As I said from day one, Bob Arum would have my ear first and we gave Arum that chance. When he came back from Thailand we heard him out. I heard him out and what I heard wasn't an insult but I figured it was something I could do without.

"Have other people made offers? Absolutely Greg!

"Is one of them Golden Boy? Absolutely Greg. But what happened is, someone from De La Hoya's camp went out before the deal got done. The deal was talked about and it was put together, but it wasn't done and it isn't done.

"Whether it's De La Hoya, whether it's Frank Warren, even though that's not going to happen, I still got the call."

GL: Can you explain what the "major announcement"was all about? Were you and De La Hoya going to fight again? Was he going to promote you? Were you going to promote fighters together?

Bernard Hopkins: "If me and De La Hoya, and that's a big IF we work together promotionally, how can we fight each other? We couldn't do that. I think it would've been great if me and Roy Jones Jr. could have come together when we were both on top of our games.

"Me and De La Hoya will never fight again. There's a better chance of De La Hoya fighting Trinidad than De La Hoya fighting Hopkins."

"Until the deal is done I'm not going to run to the media and start some nonsense. There's nothing done right now and when there is you'll be the first to know."

 

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