07.07.05 – OPERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Golden Boy Enterprises
I would now like to turn the floor over to your host, Kelly Swanson. Ma’am, you may begin.
KELLY SWANSON, GOLDEN BOY ENTERPRISES, MODERATOR: Thank you. Welcome, everybody. Welcome back. As you know we’re almost, what, count down, 10 days away from Next in Line, July 16th at the MGM Grand on HBO Pay-per-view, and we have one of the celebrated on-the-card fighters on the call with us today. I do want to mention that Vernon Forrest is returning to the ring. It is not a comeback, as he has told me. It is a return to the ring. So, he’ll be fighting 10 rounds in the junior middle-weight division. I think that is correct.
Vernon is from Atlanta, Georgia. You all know him very well and I’m sure you’re just as delighted as we are to have him back. He’ll be facing Sergio Rios, who is seventeen and one with fifteen knockouts from Octalon Mecti Cole (ph). Vernon’s record is thirty five and two, twenty-six KOs. If anyone needs his bio or any other information on Next in Line, please feel free to call myself or Marylyn, and we will be happy to furnish you with whatever you need.
At this point, I am delighted to turn the phone over to Vernon Forrest. Welcome back, Vernon. And, why don’t you just have an opening statement before we open up the questions to the media. Vernon:
VERNON FORREST: Don’t call it a comeback; I’ve been here for years. I just wanted to say is that I’m – it is a pleasure to be back. It’s been a long time coming and a lot of up and downs and a lot of disappointments in trying to get back. I haven’t been fighting now because of I didn’t want to fight because of I couldn’t fight – the physical, the physical elements. But, a friend of mine, Dion Stanford (ph), his mother just passed and I want to dedicate this upcoming fight to her memory. She just passed yesterday, so he’s a good friend of mine, one of my best friends. So, that being said, I’m ready for the questions.
KELLY SWANSON: Operator, we’ll take some questions now, please.
OPERATOR: Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. To pose your question, please press star, one, on your touch tone telephone at this time.
Thank you. The first question comes from Dan Rafael of ESPN.
DAN RAFAEL, ESPN: Hey, Vernon. How are you?
VERNON FORREST: How are doing, Dan?
DAN RAFAEL: Long time no speak.
VERNON FORREST: Yes, absolutely.
DAN RAFAEL: Can you just – because I’m not really even sure what all the problems were. I’ve heard a lot of things that you had; problems with your elbow, problems with your shoulder. Can you just take a minute and just detail what exactly has kept you from the ring since that second (inaudible) fight? I think it’s been almost a year and a – two years, I guess.
VERNON FORREST: Two years now. Well, before I’ve had problems with my shoulder. And what happened was before, because I wasn’t able to get the kind of marquis fights and stuff, I couldn’t afford to take a break. So when it was time to fight when my arm would hurt, I’d just get a shot, I’d get a cortisone shot. And then once I got in the position to – to get the kind of recognition and start making the kind of money that I needed and wanted to make, then now it’s like, well you can’t just stop now. So I had to pretty much ride it to the (inaudible) so to speak, and that’s pretty much what I did. What happened was I got so many cortisone shots it deteriorated my joints and just made the matter worse.
So I had rotator cuff damages and I was protecting my shoulder in the way I threw punches, and that ended up damaging my elbow so I ended up having surgery on my shoulder and my elbow, and that didn’t work and I ended up having another surgery on my shoulder. And, it looks like I might have to end up having another surgery on my elbow, but I’m trying to hold off because again, I’m back to square one again. Now I’m in a position where I can’t (inaudible) and seeing it’s the two years now, so it’s like you got to kind of play with the pain and deal with the issues and go on and go forward.
DAN RAFAEL: Vernon, I want to just get clarification. First of all, which arm was it? Your right arm or you left arm?
VERNON FORREST: My left arm.
DAN RAFAEL: That was where all the problems were?
VERNON FORREST: Yes.
DAN RAFAEL: And how many surgeries did you have.
VERNON FORREST: Three surgeries so far.
DAN RAFAEL: And that’s all been in the past two years?
VERNON FORREST: Yes.
DAN RAFAEL: And how many on your – of the three surgeries, can you clarify what occurred in each one of them?
VERNON FORREST: The first surgery I had – well, he supposed to have fixed the rotator cuff, fixed some tendons around there, around the – because I had bone, I had bone (inaudible). All the cartilage was gone and so I just had bone on bone rubbing so they fixed that. You know, put some artificial tissue in there.
DAN RAFAEL: So the first one was rotator cuff and bone spurs?
VERNON FORREST: Yes. And then in the elbow was bone spurs and some tendon damage.
DAN RAFAEL: That was all the first surgery?
VERNON FORREST: That was all the first surgery.
DAN RAFAEL: So it was rotator cuff, elbow, and tendon damage.