LONDON: Promoter Frank Warren is encouraged to hear that Bernard Hopkins is ready to fight Joe Calzaghe. Unfortunately, he's heard it all before.
After unifying three world titles at super-middleweight on Sunday to take his record to 44-0, Calzaghe wants to step up to light-heavyweight and take on Hopkins.
Hopkins, a standout American middleweight who successfully moved up two divisions to win another world title, responded by saying he welcomed the fight but on his own terms.
That, says Warren, is where there could be problems.
"We did a deal with Bernard Hopkins. It took us 30 minutes to do the deal five or six years ago," Calzaghe's promoter told reporters on Tuesday. "We agreed terms, the lawyers were on the telephone, everything's done. Twenty-four hours later Hopkins demanded double the amount of money."
The fight never happened and now Warren is trying to push the two together at light-heavyweight.
Calzaghe was a moderately successful world super-middleweight champion back then without any eye-catching wins on his record. After impressively beating IBF champion Jeff Lacy and then taking the WBA and WBC titles from Mikkel Kessler on Sunday to go with the WBO title he has defended 21 times over 10 years, the unbeaten Welshman now has far more negotiating power.
Hopkins was quoted on ESPN.com on Monday as saying he would look at what he would get out of a fight against Calzaghe. He argued that the Welshman needed the fight to get true recognition in the United States.
"I would love to entertain his request to fight Bernard Hopkins," he said. "I think he understands now and Frank Warren understands that he needs that final stamp of approval from the American boxing writers and the fans. He doesn't have that name of that elite opponent from America on his resume.
"Bernard Hopkins is the guy that Calzaghe and Frank Warren believe they have to defeat to get that stamp of approval over here in America."
Warren called on HBO to get Hopkins to take the Calzaghe fight rather than a proposed rematch with Ronald "Winky" Wright, the fighter he beat on points in July.
"We talked our heads off yesterday and the ball's in his court," Warren said. "But I'm not going to push his name any more. What has he got in front of him? He has a rematch with Winky Wright which I'm sure the people who make Prozac and Mogadon will be queuing up to sponsor.
"Bernard keeps saying what a big name he is but is he a big name fighter? Let's get the fight on and we will do it in the States but it's about Joe getting well paid."
Warren suggested that Hopkins, who is seven years older than Calzaghe at age 42, might be scared of losing to the Welshman, even if the fight were to be in New York or in his hometown of Philadelphia.
"The implications are that we are going to get a chance of doing it," Warren said. "He's a student of boxing and looks after himself. But he knows he will be beaten by Joe Calzaghe. That's why I feel that it will be a struggle to get him.
"Joe Calzaghe has had a couple of fights now on prime-time U.S. TV and he's delivered the goods against Lacy and Kessler."
Eventually, he said, it will come down to Hopkins.
"He is what he is. He's his own man but now he is in a position where he's got to fight somebody," Warren said.
"With the greatest respect to HBO, make him fight Joe Calzaghe."
