by David P. Greisman

Bernard Hopkins has spoken of it before, and he’s now bringing it up again: a potential fight with pound-for-pound and box-office king Floyd Mayweather.

“After I become light heavyweight champion again, if there’s one big fight out there and I think ‘50-50,’ he gets 50 wins, I turn 50, that’d be huge at 165, 170 pounds,” he said, a reference to Hopkins’ upcoming birthday in January 2015 and to Floyd Mayweather’s anticipated record of 49-0 once he reaches the end of his Showtime deal at the end of 2015.

Hopkins said he could make 165 or 168 pounds “real good, real comfortably.” He checked in at 172.4 pounds for his win over Beibut Shumenov on Saturday.

“I would love to do that, but let me get past [Adonis] Stevenson, because you know he can punch,” Hopkins told reporters.

“Once I become the light heavyweight champion, I ain’t gonna defend it,” he said. “If I do a fight, it’s going to be one of the biggest fight in the world, and it’ll be ‘50-50: The Promotion.’ Figure out what that means. … We’ll do that one at a stadium somewhere.”

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