By Dan Ambrose: 38-year-old IBO cruiserweight champion Danny Green (31-3, 27 KO’s) is targeting 46-year-old Bernard Hopkins for a fight in the near future if Green can get by 42-year-old Antonio Tarver (28-6, 19 KO’s) on July 20th in their bout at Entertainment Centre, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Green wants the opportunity to face Hopkins, but unfortunately the chances of that is minimal at best.

Green hasn’t helped himself since making a comeback in 2009 by fighting almost all of his bouts in Australia against mediocre opposition in most cases. Since 2009, Green has beaten and old and shot Roy Jones, and had wins over Paul Briggs, Manny Siaca, BJ Flores, Anthony van Niekerk and Julio Cesar Dominguez. Instead of taking on the big names in the cruiserweight division, Green has been pretty much content on facing old and/or obscure fighters.

This has kept Green winning, but it’s going to hurt him for his attempt at luring Hopkins into a fight. It’s just not going to happen. Hopkins has much better options available with an upcoming bout against Chad Dawson, if Hopkins doesn’t wiggle out of that fight. Hopkins also is looking at taking on IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute in the future. With Hopkins’ win over WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal last weekend, Hopkins’ opportunities are almost limitless.

If he can beat Dawson and Bute, Hopkins will be huge. At that point, he would likely go after the winner of the Super Six tournament or one of the other Super Six tourney fighters and get another big payday. Green, on the other hand, isn’t helping himself by going after old names in the sport for easy paydays. Green needs to get serious and take on some of young top fighters in the cruiserweight division. Number #1 ranked WBO cruiserweight contender Denis Lebedev wants to fight Green, but it looks like Green isn’t too eager for that fight. Lebedev destroyed Roy Jones Jr. in the 10th round last weekend.