{"id":817001,"date":"2026-07-22T17:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817001\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T17:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:41:09","slug":"jai-opetaia-sues-ibf-alleges-wide-ranging-conspiracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/817001\/","title":{"rendered":"Jai Opetaia sues IBF, alleges wide-ranging conspiracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Darshan Desai at Uncrowned <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/boxing\/article\/jai-opetaia-sues-ibf-over-title-stripping-alleges-conspiracy-to-punish-him-for-zuffa-boxing-signing-065703310.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reports<\/a> that former IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia has filed suit against the sanctioning body, alleging a conspiracy on the part of the WBA, WBC, WBO, former promoter Eddie Hearn, and others to punish him for signing with Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The IBF <a href=\"https:\/\/www.badlefthook.com\/boxing-news\/113484\/ibf-wont-sanction-zuffas-jai-opetaia-vs-brandon-glanton-fight\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stripped Opetaia (30-0, 23 KO) of the belt<\/a> ahead of his Zuffa debut this past March, characterizing his bout with Brandon Glanton for the Zuffa title an unsanctioned unification. Opetaia swept Glanton on all three scorecards and intended to follow up with a crack at WBC champion Noel Mikaelian, only for Mauricio Sulaiman to order a three-belt unification between Mikaelian and David Benavidez that Opetaia cites as evidence of punitive collusion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Per Desai, Opetaia \u201cis seeking reinstatement as IBF cruiserweight champion, damages, attorneys\u2019 fees and costs, and an injunction preventing the sanctioning body from naming a new cruiserweight champion while the litigation is pending.\u201d Opetaia claims that \u201cevidence supporting this conspiracy exists in group text messages and WhatsApp conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Here\u2019s the thing: would a shadowy, nefarious plot be beyond the realm of possibility? Hell, no. I\u2019d be more shocked if these sorts of things weren\u2019t happening on the regular. I just can\u2019t understand what Opetaia expected after signing with Dana White, who said <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Duke0fLondon\/status\/2079934388670742662\" rel=\"nofollow\">in the most unambiguous terms imaginable<\/a> that he had no interest in working with the sanctioning bodies. This isn\u2019t a case of not checking the fine print, bud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Darshan Desai at Uncrowned reports that former IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia has filed suit against the sanctioning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,1920,85],"class_list":["post-817001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817001","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=817001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}