Light heavyweight king Bernard Hopkins: "Now let's get to the good stuff. Let's get to Winky Wright, the reason that a fight between me and Winky Wright makes sense is because Winky Wright is not a partner in Golden Boy so there's no conflict of interest. Winky Wright is his own independent promoter and he subs out to us to be his mouthpiece. On that note, it will be a fight that I am interested in. Winky Wright is own man and if he wants to take on Bernard Hopkins at 175 for the supremacy of being the undisputed light heavyweight champion of the world, so be it. That fight is a lot more interesting than a Tarver fight, so if Winky Wright wants that fight, and I have to give Winky credit because he always speaks for himself, Winky comes on Boxingtalk and says that Jermain Taylor doesn't want to fight,but if he would like to take on Bernard Hopkins it can happen.

"And the Julian Jackson of this era is Miranda, the guy who beat Willie Gibbs a few weeks ago, I'm not funny or nothing, but I love the guy. I think every promoter or manager who has a middleweight contender or a middleweight with a belt is scared to death of this guy. I'm not gay but I love him.

"Any of the big fights out there that can be made they just need to step up and fight the Godfather. That's what I am right now I'm like the f**king Godfather so if they want to see the big boy they need to call me Corleone, in 2007 I'm kicking ass and taking names.

GL: (cutting in) I'm kind of like the Godfather in this business because when the fighters want to get it out there they call Leon.

Bernard Hopkins: "Now that we know Winky could get it, let's move on to Joe Calzaghe. He's talking about breaking my record saying I should have fought him two or three years ago. Calzaghe is an idiot being programmed to say certain things by his promoter. On top of that there's super middleweight with more defenses than he has, but whenever he's ready to finish drinking his tea over there in England and get his feelings hurt, we could fight in New York City, Atlantic City, Vegas or anywhere in the United States that he wants to fight. But he's not the star of the fight and I'm not going to go over there on a boat, ferry of plane because I'm not broke so if he wants to fight Joe Calzaghe and Frank Warren all they need to do is call Leon, the Godfather. Frank Warren knows me very well and he knows that I'm no dummy and he needs to understand through Boxingtalk.com that he has to put up or shut up. But this needs to be clear, I'm not on the time scheulde of anyone else. If they want to play games and try to wait until the end of next year it'll be too late. No matter what you job is, there comes a time where you have a cut off point of doing what you do.

"They have to understand that I'm not saying this to play games and I'm not looking for leverage, my record speaks for itself. My pay-per-view numbers over the years, if you believe what Mark Taffet says and I do, I've become a star by the numbers. Excluding the De La Hoya fight, because everyone does big numbers with Oscar, but excluding that number in 2004 when we did over a million buys, with everyone else I promoted those fights and I held my own to carry the promotions.

"Now let's move on to the last but definitely not least, Roy Jones Jr. If me and Roy Jones are to fight I would want it to be in the contract that Roy has to promote the fight. He has to show up at every press conference and he has to talk to every reporter to promote the fight of the legends. Floyd Mayweather and Oscar is the fight, and this fight should be named "The Legends." Roy is going to read this, you know why? Because you're going to do what you do type it up and then call Roy. Then you're going tell him Bernard said he ain't got no problem fighting you and he wants to make sure you're going to support the promotion. Roy has problems with promoting the fight and that's the only thing that he scares me on, is he going to be a businessman knowing that we have to sell this fight as the Legends? Forget about the two guys who knocked him out because I dominated both of them. I stopped Glen Johnson when he was undefeated and Tarver was one of the easiest fights of my career. That's the reason they say styles make fights. Jermain Taylor and Bernard Hopkins will always be a difficult fight. Why? Because he likes to hold, swing wild and he's got money and politics behind him.

"Kassim Ouma, who is a lightweight, a featherweight, gave him hell. I picked Jermain to have an easy night for that one, and Kassim is with us. I thought they finally found a fight to make Jermain look like the killer they try to portray him as. I thought he was going to win easy, I mean he's big and he's strong and he's eating that all that country pork. The fans aren't stupid, that's why they love me."

GL: Let's say Roy Jones Jr agrees to promote the event, the concern that Jones expressed to me as it relates to a rematch with you is that Bernard would want all of the money.

BH: "Roy Jones has my number and I have his number, as a matter of fact I'll read it to you let me go through my phone real quick It's 1-850-(BOXINGTALK). This is the fight between the legends and you don't treat a legend like a piece of shit. I will not treat Roy like he is anything less than a legend. I will not treat him like a washed up bum, because he's not. Roy Jones inspired me and he will go to the Hall of Fame on his first ballot. This is not blowing smoke up his ass, but Roy and I came up during the same era. Our fight in 1993 on the undercard of Riddick Bowe and Jesse Ferguson, I remember it like it was yesterday. That fight there made me who I am today. If it weren't for Roy Jones Jr. I wouldn't know as much about the business of how to prepare for a big fight with the lights and the cameras on you. I had to go to school and Roy Jones Jr's experience in that kind of situation taught me a lot and helped make me who I am today. Winky Wright recently said in a Boxingtalk interview and he's 100% correct, that Roy Jones Jr. really started the whole thing with fighters being independent and doing their own thing. He paid his dues and he was the Michael Jordan of boxing. The things that he did I would have been knocked out years ago for trying. Throwing a left hook from the other side of the ring, off balanced power shots without using the jab."

GL: How do you think Hopkins-Jones II does on PPV?

BH: "I think it would do great numbers. I think of all the fights we're talking about, I think me and Roy Jones has a great possibility of getting bigger numbers than any fight out there for me and that's including the Tarver rematch. You're talking about the legends. If Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson were going to play one on one to 22 are you telling me people wouldn't buy tickets to watch that?  This is not about belts, this is about legends. Demetrius needs a belt and the fighters coming up need a belt, the fighters who aren't marquee need belts because that's what gives them life to breathe. That's what I needed. Without the belt I wouldn't have become undisputed and I would have never gotten the De La Hoya fight. A fight with Roy Jones Jr is a big fight. We fought before and we are different fighters than we were 14 years ago."

GL: Your 1993 fight with Roy Jones Jr is the last fight that you truly feel you lost, I imagine avenging that loss means something to you.

BH: "Roy Jones Jr and Clinton Mitchell are the only people that I believe I lost to. I have no ill feelings towards Jermain Taylor and the support I get from the fans on what happened in those two fights speaks for itself. Avenging that loss would mean a lot to me, shit it would mean a lot to me if I could get Clinton Mitchell back into the ring. (laughs) Roy wants to be treated with respect for what he did for boxing and I want the same thing Roy does, respect. Roy will have nothing to worry about when it comes to getting treated fair, I will treat him like the legend he is."

M

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