Bernard Hopkins vs Roy Jones early 2000's. Who's fault was it.Who ducked who?

Well Roy did win the 1st fight and was the bigger star..60/40 was more then fair at that time...BUT both had huge ego's and refused to budge and we got the fight years later when it meant nothing...........sound familiar?

 

60-40...and i'll kick yo ass - Roy Jones Jr

 

60/40 was fair but Hopkins is notorious for doing things his way and if he didn't like it, he walks.

 

If Hopkins wanted it he would have accepted the 60-40 offer. Jones already beat Hopkins and had a far better resume at that point. The only name opponent Hopkins had on his resume at the time was Trinidad.

 

Hopkins didnt want it cause at that time Roy would have beat that ass

 

[ame]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_jaBaDzHcHg[/ame]

 

but hopkins beating trinidad was his window into PPV - something jones and hopkins never did well at for along time
i'm not saying that makes 60-40 unfair, but i am saying it gave hopkins something roy didnt have

 

Neither man was the PPV draw that they would eventually go on to be. Jones while a star at the time was not a big draw. His PPV's were struggling to draw 100K buys and HBO were losing money on every Jones Jr fight at the time.

Hopkins while riding high from having beaten Trinidad was still unproven in terms of what he could draw at the time.

Jones biggest PPV at the time was about 300k vs Toney while Hopkins was 475k vs Tito. Neither man was the draw for both these PPV's so it's hard to gauge who really was the bigger draw at the time. Roy was the more established star but Hopkins was the flavour of the month.

I personally blame both for the fight not happening. Both are stubborn men who have all too often by managing themselves have had a detrimental effect on their careers.

 

My man Hopkins overestimated his negotiating power after beating Trinidad and (being the stubborn son of a ***** that he is) refused to back down from his 50/50 demand. Roy's contract with HBO at the time allowed him to make like $5 million a fight taking on bums, so why in the **** would he take on a risky opponent in Bernard and give him 50%?

 

Honestly I thought a 50/50 split between the two fighters would've been fair at the time given that Hopkins was coming off of his huge upset victory over Trinidad, a fight that a lot of people didn't think B-Hop would win. But at best given that Roy was a few shades more popular and well known than Hopkins at the time and the fact that he did own a fairly close but convincing decision win over him several years before in what was most likely Roy's toughest test to date for a long time a 55/45 split for Roy Jones Jr., against Bernard Hopkins for a primed early 2000's decade rematch would've also been considered fair.

However looking at the whole negotiating scenario from Bernard's point of view I could definitely understand him not wanting to give up most of the money to Roy for the rematch at the time given that he, B-Hop, was still under his three year/6 fight contract deal with promoter Don King who quite naturally didn't care much for Hopkins best interest at hand like he did "Tito" Trinidad, the man that B-Hop had just beaten and possibly ruined to a degree slightly, and Hopkins quite naturally and reasonably so did not in turn want to give up most of the money at the negotiating table to free agent Roy while Bernard, no matter what the outcome of the fight at the time had been, would've been subjected to giving 33 and 1/3 of his purse to Don King and Hopkins didn't want that. So basically that's the main reason why the rematch between Hopkins-R.Jones 2, or an at the time proposed catchweight match up between Hopkins-James Toney didn't happen.

 

That was Hopkins' fault. I have to admit.

 

Bernard ducked it was very clear , he has this way of asking for the fight then coming out with stupidly high requirements.

Ask Joe Calzaghe.

 

You have to ask yourself between the James Toney fight and the John Ruiz fight what fight did Roy Jones take that was a risk? Then ask yourself why bouts with Benn, Michelzewski, Collins, Liles, Jackson, McClellan and Nunn never happened?