updated 8:09 p.m. ET March 16, 2005

Bernard Hopkins says he’ll make other plans if Jermain Taylor doesn’t quickly accept a $1.5 million offer to fight him for the undisputed middleweight title on July 16.

Hopkins said Wednesday that the purse being offered by his promoter, Golden Boy Promotions, is fair enough if Taylor is serious about trying to win the middleweight title.

“Jermain Taylor has his opportunity, and his opportunity in the next 24 hours is probably over,” Hopkins told The Associated Press. “We’re not begging these guys to fight.”

Taylor’s promoter, Lou DiBella, said Hopkins should begin looking for other opponents if he thinks Taylor will fight for what he said was the first offer placed on the table.

“If that’s his position, then it’s over,” Dibella said. “Jermain wants a fair deal and that’s now what they offered. We could probably do better than that in a purse bid.”

Taylor staked his claim as the top contender when he appeared last month on the undercard of the fight between Hopkins and Howard Eastman in Los Angeles. The member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic team stopped Daniel Edouard in the third round to remain undefeated in 23 fights and move himself in position to challenge Hopkins.

Hopkins, though, said that Taylor wants too much money for the proposed pay-per-view fight considering has never fought for the title and will be fighting a champion who has defended the title 20 times.

“I did the research and got accurate numbers to justify what would be a fair offer,” Hopkins said. “I started out with a million dollars based on what he received in his last fight.”

Hopkins declined to say how much he would make in the fight, which isn’t the most attractive pay-per-view date because it is in the summer when viewership is generally down.

Hopkins made $10 million to fight Oscar De La Hoya last year, but has never been a proven ticket seller. About 12,000 people attended his fight last month at Staples Center, but many of those got in on discounted tickets.

Still, Hopkins said he should be able to dictate terms for the fight.

“The bottom line is who is the name, who is the star, who is the undisputed champion,” Hopkins said. “He’s not a gold medal winner, he’s never beaten anyone in the top three.”

Hopkins said if Taylor doesn’t agree to his price he could fight Felix Sturm, the German who nearly beat Oscar De La Hoya last year.

Hopkins said he went public with the offer to Taylor because he doesn’t want to be portrayed as the bad guy in the negotiations. Hopkins has been sensitive to charges in recent years that he badly mismanaged himself before getting his big payday with De La Hoya.

“I was a rabbit all these years and they always had me on the run,” Hopkins said. “Now the rabbit has got a gun. How do they feel now?”

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