Jai Opetaia, the IBF cruiserweight champion, is unhappy that the other champions in the division are not keen to fight him in a unification bout.
The 29-year-old Opetaia (25-0, 19 KOs) wants to become the undisputed champion, but cannot work towards that goal without financial assistance from His Excellency Turki Alalshikh.
“I really struggle with the fact that fellow champions don’t grab these opportunities with both hands,” Jai Opetaia told Boxing News.
Instead of complaining, Opetaia needs to put some fire under his promoter Eddie Hearn’s backside to come out with the dough to motivate the other champions to fight him. They will never agree to fight Opetaia unless Hearn offers them big cash.
“I’m comfortable being uncomfortable. We always chase pain in the gym,” said Opetaia iFL TV when asked if he was ready for the deep waters against Jack Massey on Saturday night.
The other champions will all be underdogs against Opetaia with little chance of beating him now as he is at the top of his game. That will eventually change as he gets older, but he’s in the prime of his career right now. It doesn’t make sense for any champion to fight Opetaia without the money being in the mega-million range.
So, they won’t agree to fight him unless the money is life-changing to set them up for life. Why would they want to fight Opetaia and lose their title if the money wasn’t massive? It doesn’t make sense.
It would be the same with Opetaia. Would he fight without the enormous money if he was the underdog against someone he was expected to lose? No way. It’s the same situation Hearn fighter Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis faces at welterweight.
He wants to unify the division, but the champions have no interest in fighting him unless they are paid retirement-type money. Hearn didn’t come up with the dollar signs that would essentially make them want to sell their titles.
Opetaia (25-0, 19 KOs) will defend his belt against #11 ranked IBF bantamweight contender Jack Massey (22-2, 12 KOs) this Saturday night, October 12th in a 12 round contest at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh. That fight attracted very little fan interest for obvious reasons. Massey is not ranked high and was recently beaten in 2023.
“You always look for that carrot at the end of the tunnel, and now he’s in the way of it. So, we have to remove him from there and continue to that root. Until then, he’s stopping us from getting there,” Opetaia said about possibly the winner of the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol fight and the winner of the Chris Billiam Smith vs. Get Gilberto Ramirez Unification Fight.
