Vernon Forrest puts Karmazin on blast!

By G. Leon

12/01/2006

Vernon Forrest puts Karmazin on blast!

Viper spews venom at IBF junior middleweight champ!

Last night former welterweight king Vernon Forrest told Boxingtalk.com, "In response to Roman Karmazin's article on Boxingtalk, in terms of he and I sparring. Yeah we sparred like four or five rounds and for him to say he had fun with me. Well he didn't have as much fun as I did beating his ass with one arm. In terms of an elite fighter, he's beaten one fighter. He has one real name on his resume. Of all the guys that he's fought, the only name is Kassim Ouma and from what I understand, the boy was sick. Like I said, if he wants to make this fight we could get it done real easy and real simple. And to be honest with you, to me he's real easy work. Fighting me he's going to make more money than he's ever made in this fight game. Hell, I'll give him 60-40 to get it done, maybe I'll do even better than that. That's how much I know the boy can't hang in there with me. In terms of putting me into retirement, I'm the biggest name that he's ever going to fight. I do recall him getting his ass kicked by Javier Castillejo a few years back."

"We could make this fight on the undercard of Jermain, let's make it happen. I'm not going to get into a back and forth with this guy. That's not how I operate. The only way he's going to get on HBO is fighting me. HBO and HBO Latino are two different kind of boxing crowds and two different kinds of exposures. If he wants to be on real HBO and get more than the $50,000 he made for Kassim. He was a nobody before he fought Kassim and he's still a nobody now that he's beaten Kassim. If you want to be somebody you 've got to beat somebody."

GL: How do you feel about him saying he doesn't fight someone that's going to make excuses about injuries after he beats them?

Vernon Forrest: "My arm is fine now. I never made excuses then and I'm not going to make excuses now. Nobody has ever heard me say I lost a fight because of injury or because of this or that. I don't know where he got this excuse shit from. But if he wants to bring his robotic style fighting, right hand left hook throwing ass into the ring come on down to Arkansas and get on a real HBO card against a real fighter. Now it's put up or shut up, what's it going to be?"

"I got a manager who speaks with his promoter on a frequent basis. If he's not on top of his business that lets me know what kind of business person he is. I'm not in the fight game, I'm in the boxing business. I think we do business and when it's time to do business we talk to the business people. Obviously the people who handle don't care about him because the last time he fought was July. Here we are six months later, he's a world champion and he can't get a fight. He's not even on the radar and I shouldn't even be bringing him up and if he didn't have a title I wouldn't even be wasting my breath on him."

"He's a nobody with a belt and I'm doing him a favor by offering him a 60-40 split. He's not going to make that kind of money anywhere else. What's he going to make in his next fight if he doesn't fight me? He's not fighting Jermain so he needs to wake up and go where the money."

GL: So you don't feel he's a realistic option for Jermain?

VF: "If Jermain wanted to fight a nobody who became a somebody he should fight Sam Soliman. If he wants to fight nobody who's still a nobody at middleweight, he'll fight Karmazin. Karmazin is lucky he got a belt. He has a weak style, he's not a great fighter, he's just a tough guy that does a few things well. He's nothing special. The only thing he does is throw a right hand left hook and a punch behind the head here and there. Even though he was sick I was surprised that he beat Kassim. To say that he's the big bad wolf after one solid win, come one man, nobody is running home from this guy. I ain't running away from him, I'm lining up to take his belt to show him how a champion's supposed to be treated."

"I'm just trying to get to him before he signs for a rematch with Kassim, because we all know how that would turn out."

GL: Will you be fighting on the Taylor co-feature with or without Karmazin?

VF: "Absolutely. I'm going to be on that show. I know I'm going to be fighting on HBO in my next fight, where's he going to be fighting that's the question."

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