"I heard James Toney wants to fight me or Bernard. Tell him to go fight Bernard. I got better things to do. I already been down that road so I'm not chasing him...Bernard, you just as boring then as you are now. You just a safe fighter that don't take no chances. The fight could be boring as hell, you don't care, as long as you win. Well that's good for you, but that's not good enough for me. I need my fans to be entertained so I will take a chance. I will gamble. I will drop my hands against the best of them because I want my fans to make sure they entertained and enjoy themselves so I will do that. He won't! I will," stated former pound-for-pound and multi-division champion Roy Jones Jr. as he fired back at Bernard Hopkins and James Toney. You don't want to miss what he had to say as he sets the record straight regarding fights with both men and discusses his December 2nd clash with Danny Green in Australia. Check it out!
BT: My man! What's going on?
RJ: What's good Ben? How are you?
BT: I'm doing good man. How about yourself?
RJ: I'm good!
BT: Cool. Cool. So first and foremost, what's the good word with the Danny Green fight?
RJ: December 2nd in Australia!
BT: You guys got a venue yet?
RJ: It's in Australia. We're not sure which venue yet, but it's definitely in Australia. I'm sure we got one, but I don't know the exact venue yet.
BT: So I guess that's pretty much a done deal now since it looks like Bernard Hopkins don't want none (laughing).
RJ: Yeah. Nah, he don't want none.
BT: What exactly was the deal with that? I saw he came out of nowhere and basically accused you of not wanting to fight him because you want to get your commenting job back.
RJ: Yeah. Well, here's the deal. They want me to fight at 55/45, right?
BT: Yep.
RJ: I said why would I give him 55/45, you know what I'm saying? First of all, I beat him already. Second of all, I'm not really trippin' about fighting him. He the one trippin' about fighting me. I don't really care. So they said what about 55/45. I said okay, if they want to do 55/45, then they need to make it worth it. I told them if they want to do 55/45, then they need to give me my commentating job and maybe that will make up the [5%] difference. What it is and what it boils down to is that Bernard just don't want to do 50/50 because he gotta pay Golden Boy his percentage and he don't want to end up making less than me because, you know, he owns a small part of Golden Boy and when he gives them their percentage, it's going to make his 50% go down some. And I understand; I'm not blaming him for that. I mean, I know what you mean, but don't act like I'm the problem because I'm not the problem. What you do with your 50% is your business and what I do with my 50% is my business. We can fight 50/50 or we can fight 60 to the winner and 40 to the loser, it don't matter to me. Or we can fight winner take all; I don't care about none of that.
BT: I don't even know why he came out and brought that up. What was his point?
RJ: That's what I'm saying. I don't know. I don't know why he even brought it up. All I heard, a guy called me and said, "Hey man, this dude's talking about you." I called him and said, "What the problem is? I didn't ask to fight. what the problem is?" He all of a sudden starts saying my name and worried about what I'm doing and this, that and the other and how he did this and how he did that; man, I don't want to hear all that. You can not beat Roy Jones Jr., you have not beat Roy Jones Jr. and you don't want to fight Roy Jones Jr. so shut up saying my name. I mean, you got people thinking that you want to do this and you really don't want to do this, so why you keep calling my name? I didn't say nothing about fighting you. Why you saying something about fighting me when you know you really don't want to do it? That's what I don't get. Talk about what you really want to do. If you did, you wouldn't be talking them crazy numbers.
BT: Yeah, I saw John [Wirt] come out and tried to clarify the whole situation. You made it pretty clear that you'd do 60/40 with 60 to the winner or 50/50 and yet, they still try to throw these different numbers at you.
RJ: Exactly! Exactly! And then it's, "Okay, we'll do 50/50, but how about Golden Boy gets 20% off the top?" That's still 60/40. That's not no 50/50. Come on man. Don't play with me. I just get mad because they play these stupid games like somebody dumb and don't understand that's still 60/40. Come on man. If ya'll want to fight, you want to fight. Don't even talk about that. Truthfully, to me, at 44, 45, however old he is, he sat out a whole year and still didn't fight. December will be my third fight. Don't mess with me right now. It's not a good time. How they say? Stella got her groove back? I got my mojo back, you know what I mean? Don't play with me now. Right now is not a good time. Then I heard James Toney wants to fight me or Bernard. Tell him to go fight Bernard. I got better things to do. I already been down that road so I'm not chasing him. I mean, if he got somebody who's gonna guarantee me $15 million to come up to heavyweight and fight him again, I'll do that. That's a heavyweight fight, you know what I'm saying? But he ain't got the heavyweight title so what am I going up to fight him at heavyweight for? What do I prove by beating him again at heavyweight? Nothing! So if there ain't $15 million, what am I fighting James Toney for at heavyweight? He's 260 and I'm 185. What am I fighting him for at heavyweight? What is that? As big as he is at heavyweight, if it ain't worth my while, what am I fighting James Toney for? Somebody please tell me (laughing).
BT: (Laughing) Hey, at least he did cut down to 217. He's trying to get closer to your weight.
RJ: (Laughing) Still, what am I fighting James Toney for?
BT: Yeah, I hear ya. He called you out asking for a rematch, but at this point, he's not even fighting on TV.
RJ: That's what I'm trying to tell you. Tell him to go fight Bernie, I mean Bernard. That would be better for him. Him and Bernard should get together and fight. They never fought before and the fans would love to see something they've never seen before so tell him to go do that. James is a great fighter and all, but I mean, what am I fighting him again for at heavyweight? Now if he goes down to cruiser and gets a cruiserweight title, I'm willing to go take that. But right now, if I'm fighting at heavyweight, what do I get out of that?
BT: You know, you're almost getting to the point where you're back on top and everybody is calling you out again.
RJ: There you go! There you go! All I got to do is look good one time and what they all say? We want Roy! We want Roy! Why? Cuz Roy is who the people want to see. No matter who it is, Roy is who the people want to see. They can say what they want to say. They thought Roy was dead and gone, but the way God made Roy, God made it to where Roy is always what the people want to see. Everybody, anybody who's anybody, everybody, I win one fight and everybody wanna fight me now, you know what I mean? It's crazy. I mean, I win two fights and everybody wants to fight me again because they know I'm back now and they know that when you bring Roy, you bring excitement, you bring a show, you get a better fight than you gonna get from anybody else when Roy is in the ring because the last performance I put on, to me, was one of the best performances that I've seen in 10 years. That was against Jeff Lacy, who basically, to me, he's seen his better days, but still, I was able to do that to him and he's not a bad fighter. He's only had two losses. I mean, he held his own against Jermain Taylor, who beat Bernard Hopkins. Bernard always talking, "Well, I beat this cat and he done beat you and I beat that guy and he done beat you." Yeah, look when they beat me; when I came down from 200 pounds. Yeah, they beat me then, but they couldn't beat me when I was in my prime. You beat them, but that don't mean you gonna beat me. I mean, if that's the case, I may as well say, "Hell, I beat Jeff Lacy and Jeff Lacy gave Jermain Taylor a hard time and Jermain Taylor beat Bernard, then hell, what am I fighting Bernard for," which is the way I look at it. I can look at it the same way. What am I fighting him for? If Jeff Lacy gave Jermain Taylor that much of a hard time, which was a good fight, Jeff Lacy knocked Jermain Taylor down actually; then Jermain already had done beat Bernard twice, so what am I gonna fight Bernard for?
BT: Well, regardless of what people think of Jeff Lacy right now, I think it was your performance that spoke louder than the victory and...
RJ: (Cutting in) And that's what I'm trying to say. That's what I'm trying to say. When you see a performance like that...how many fighters do you see...you see fighters fight guys who ain't as good as Jeff Lacy, but you don't see them throwing 6 or 7 hooks at a time, you know what I'm saying? You don't see them do things like me when I perform because God blessed me to be a true performer. That's my gift. They don't have that gift. They can beat me sometimes when I ain't myself, but they can't ever be me. That's the problem. All of them want to beat me, but they can't be me.
BT: Well, that's kind of what I was going to say. In that performance, people can say what they want to say about Jeff Lacy, but you took care of business and you stopped him...
RJ: (Cutting in) And he ain't never been stopped before.
BT: And he ain't never been stopped before. On the other hand, when someone like Bernard fights a guy who could be considered a little less competition, like Kelly Pavlik, well, that's not to take anything away from Pavlik, but Pavlik...
RJ: (Cutting in) He didn't stop Kelly Pavlik. I would have stopped Kelly Pavlik! He didn't stop Kelly Pavlik. He can't stop Kelly Pavlik. I would've stopped Kelly Pavlik guaranteed!
BT: I can't even remember the last guy that Bernard stopped.
RJ: He ain't stopped nobody because he can't punch (laughing). He got a good, one-punch overhand right and that's about it. He ain't stopping nobody. That's why he's so boring. Think about it, like I told you, it ain't my fault that when I was in my prime, I was so much better than you that the people didn't want to see you. I'm sorry son. If you still hold that over my head, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. That's not my fault. That's just what God blessed me with. You can't get mad. When you was 27 and I was 24 or however old I was, when I was 30 and you were 36 or 35, people didn't want to see you, people wanted to see me. That's not my fault. Don't get mad at me now like, "Oh, it's your fault they didn't want to watch me when you was on top." You know why? Bernard, you just as boring then as you are now. You just a safe fighter that don't take no chances. The fight could be boring as hell, you don't care, as long as you win. Well that's good for you, but that's not good enough for me. I need my fans to be entertained so I will take a chance. I will gamble. I will drop my hands against the best of them because I want my fans to make sure they entertained and enjoy themselves so I will do that. He won't! I will!
BT: It's basically to the point where it sounds like it's just personal for Bernard.
RJ: It's very personal. It'very personal for Bernard. That's what I'm trying to tell you. It's very personal for him, but I mean, that ain't got nothing to do with me. I ain't really trippin' on none of that. I already told him, "Bernard, I'm not really eager to fight you. I already beat you. My resume got heavyweight title on it and my resume got a W by name and yours got an L by your name. If anything, I'm looking for a cat named Glen Johnson. I'm looking for a cat named Antonio Tarver again. I'm not really concerned about you."
BT: (Laughing) Tarver? Again? You'd fight Tarver? What would that be, a fourth time?
RJ: Yeah. Anybody that done beat me, I'll fight again. Anybody that beat me, I will fight again. I'm really looking forward to trying to get at Klitschko.
BT: Either one? Both of them? Don't matter?
RJ: Yep. Don't matter which one of them. David Haye talked up a good fight and didn't do it. If I talk up a good fight, I'm gonna follow through with it and I'd definitely love to fight either one of them. I don't care which one.
BT: I guess first up is Danny Green though.
RJ: Yep. That's first up. That's exactly right.
BT: Is there any concern about going down to Australia? It's not often you fight out of the States.
RJ: Hey, no concern whatsoever. I know what I'm up against, I know what I gotta do so no concern whatsoever.
BT: Does that fight go the distance or are you stopping him?
RJ: I think I gotta stop him. I'm overseas so I gotta stop him. To ensure victory, he's got to be stopped. I gotta stop him.
BT: Woooooo. Well I'm looking forward to watching.
RJ: December 2nd. I'm going down under to take him under, trust me!
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