\u00a0disagreement between the promoter and sanctioning body<\/a> over the classification of the Zuffa title, which the IBF said must be as characterised “as a trophy or token of recognition,” rather than an actual world championship.<\/p>\nOpetaia and his team have since launched legal action in an attempt to retain the IBF belt and keep his hopes of becoming undisputed champion alive.<\/p>\n
De La Hoya, the former six-division world champion who now heads up Golden Boy Promotions, has long been critical of White and that continued on social media this week.<\/p>\n
“We all know the Zuffa belt is like a participation trophy given to a nine-year old at the end of a soccer game. It has the significance of a hemorrhoid on my f***in’ ass,” De La Hoya told his followers.<\/p>\n
“Zuffa lied to everyone. The entire time, and poor Jai Opetaia suffered because of it.<\/p>\n
“They probably signed Opetaia and told his entire team, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll let you unify.’ And of course, it wasn’t going to happen.<\/p>\n
“So, instead of fighting for a belt that he loves, Jai was stuck fighting for absolutely nothing, against a guy that had zero championship experience.<\/p>\n
“Of course he wants to fight for all the belts, everybody does. Nobody wants the piece of sh*t Zuffa belt they’re trying to push on us.”<\/p>\n
De La Hoya then turned his attention to The Ring, which is now owned by Turki Alalshikh, who helps fund Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n
“His opponent Brandon Glanton was a plant by The Ring, who ranked him number 10 in the world in their made-up rankings,” he continued.<\/p>\n
“He had never even fought a championship round in his entire life, he was ranked number 15 by the IBF.<\/p>\n
“I’ve said it before, the Ring Magazine belt is officially dead. Its history and honour has been ruined by the biased propaganda and the clear agenda of those behind it.”<\/p>\n
De La Hoya also referenced the legal action taken on behalf of Opetaia, in which a preservation notice was sent to the IBF, alleging\u00a0the sanctioning body was aided and abetted by the WBA, WBC, WBO and Matchroom Boxing in a \u201ccoordinated, industry-wide collusion\u201d aimed at inflicting financial and reputational harm on Opetaia.<\/p>\n
“To make matters worse for Jai Opetaia, a letter was sent to all organisations from his attorney yesterday, threatening legal action for not working with Zuffa,” De La Hoya added.<\/p>\n
“Jai is from a little tiny town in Australia, so what are the chances he knows and chooses an attorney in Las Vegas to represent him on this matter?<\/p>\n
“Jai, wake up before they ruin your career, brother.<\/p>\n
“Fester [Dana White] is using you as a tool in all of this. Get the f*** out of there…<\/p>\n
“You sign with Zuffa and you’ll be tricked into a bunch of sh*t, just like Jai Opetaia was.”<\/p>\n
De La Hoya’s rant adds yet another layer of complexity to the situation at the top of the cruiserweight division.<\/p>\n
While it remains to be seen whether the 30-year-old Aussie will hang on to his title, he is hopeful of a meeting with WBC champion Noel Mikaelian next.<\/p>\n
That potential bout could take place around the same time as Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez puts his WBA and WBO titles on the line against David Benavidez on May 2.<\/p>\n
Opetaia’s camp is hopeful of a unification bout for all the belts with the winner of the Ramirez-Benavidez fight later in the year.<\/p>\n
Ramirez, however, is signed to Golden Boy Promotions, which could complicate negotiations given De La Hoya is clearly not fond of White’s foray into boxing with Zuffa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar De La Hoya has launched into a stunning tirade against Zuffa Boxing, Dana White and Australia’s Jai…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-536670","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\/536670","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=536670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}