Fox Sports Australian can reveal Team Opetaia have had preliminary talks about fighting Billam-Smith in December this year, and potentially on the undercard of a hyped UK rematch between Chris Eubank Jnr and Conor Benn.<\/p>\n
Currently however, Australia\u2019s IBF and Ring champion is mandated to face Turkey\u2019s Huseyin Cinkara, with a world title purse bid set to take place overnight in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
Yet Opetaia\u2019s manager Mick Francis confirmed on Tuesday that Cinkara (23-0) has been offered US$100,000 to step aside so that his superstar client can take on Billam-Smith, the former WBO cruiserweight champion.<\/p>\n
Francis added that with Opetaia having already defended twice on the Gold Coast this year, he now wants \u201cthe biggest fights possible\u201d \u2013 especially while awaiting the return of injured star Gilberto \u2018Zurdo\u2019 Ramirez, who holds both the WBA and WBO straps.<\/p>\n
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Elsewhere, there has also been a push to have Opetaia move immediately to heavyweight, with billionaire Saudi promoter Turki Al-Sheikh keen to bankroll a bout against Great Britain\u2019s Derek Chisora.<\/p>\n
Already this week however Francis has stressed his client wants to unify the cruiserweight division before moving up into lucrative heavyweight showdowns.<\/p>\n
Yet while awaiting the return of Zurdo, Team Opetaia are keen to build their client\u2019s profile in the UK market \u2013 starting by taking on, and beating, their former cruiserweight champ.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we have had discussions about Chris Billam-Smith in December,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would potentially be on the Benn-Eubank Jnr card.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, while waiting for Zurdo, Jai wants the biggest fights he can get in the division.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that when it comes to cruiserweights, it\u2019s Jai Opetaia first and daylight second.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about whispers of six-figure step aside money, Francis confirmed it saying: \u201cWe want to get Jai the biggest fights.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Despite having agreed to go to purse bid, there is a still a chance Cinkara\u2019s team could quit the fight as early as Wednesday morning for the \u2018step aside\u2019 money.<\/p>\n
However should Opetaia\u2019s crew win the IBF purse bid overnight, and Cinkara refuse to walk, the bout will likely take place Down Under in November \u2013 with Gold Coast, Perth and Townsville all potential venues being discussed.<\/p>\n
Under IBF purse bid rules, the fight must take no earlier than 30 days on from the successful bid, and no later than 90 days after.<\/p>\n
Certainly Team Opetaia are in the box seat to win the bid ahead of Cinkara.<\/p>\n
While now based in Germany, the IBF\u2019s No.1 challenger initially hails from Instanbul, although doesn\u2019t boast the profile in either country to guarantee commercial success from a world title headliner.<\/p>\n
Opetaia, meanwhile, is currently Australia\u2019s top-ranked male fighter.<\/p>\n
Already this year, the big punching southpaw has finished New Zealand\u2019s David Nyika and Italian Claudio Squeo \u2013 the latter of whom also suffered a broken jaw in their June headliner. <\/p>\n
It is understood that just to enter the purse bid, a team\u2019s manager must pay US$5000, and after having already paid that much again to be affiliated for IBF world titles.<\/p>\n
The winning bid also has only four days to pay the first 10 per cent.<\/p>\n
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Francis also said that should Opetaia and Cinkara take place in Australia, he would also expect competition from broadcasters as his undefeated client \u201cincreasingly becomes the national hero he deserves to be\u201d.<\/p>\n
After fighting in the back end of this year, Opetaia will then look to unify against Zurdo, who has been sidelined following shoulder surgery, in the first third of 2026.<\/p>\n
From there, the champ will either move immediately to heavyweight or fight once more to become the undisputed cruiserweight king \u2013 with Badou Jack currently holding the WBC strap.<\/p>\n
Currently, Opetaia is on an undefeated tear stretching 10 years and 28 fights.<\/p>\n
Yet after initially winning both the IBF and Ring titles in 2021 \u2013 defeating Mairis Briedis with a jaw broken in two places \u2013 the Aussie has since spent four years trying to chase down more belts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jai Opetaia is chasing a blockbuster Ashes showdown with Englishman Chris Billam-Smith \u2013 and has even offered his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-112473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}