{"id":422832,"date":"2026-01-21T04:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T04:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/422832\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T04:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T04:11:09","slug":"paulie-malignaggi-sees-one-major-issue-in-jai-opetaia-signing-with-dana-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/422832\/","title":{"rendered":"Paulie Malignaggi sees one major issue in Jai Opetaia signing with Dana White"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zuffa Boxing made a statement signing as they revealed the acquisition of IBF cruiserweight world champion <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/jai-opetaia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jai Opetaia<\/a>, but the announcement has raised questions from two-division conqueror <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/paulie-malignaggi\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paulie Malignaggi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Dana White\u2019s new promotional firm have targeted a takeover of boxing, bidding to make their belt the optimal prize in the sport and thus lessen the importance of the more traditional boxing belts and organisations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/fans-on-opetaia-signing-with-zuffa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The signing of Australia\u2019s Opetaia<\/a> is one of obvious intent, proof of funds, ambition and pull, but fans are left pondering whether the move will see Opetaia vacate his IBF world title or render him unable to fight contenders or champions outside of the Zuffa Boxing branch.<\/p>\n<p>On the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/DKJVvZN0V0E?si=VzZ4xeqVzqA9_iu8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BoxingScene YouTube channel<\/a>, Malignaggi shared his concerns over the signing, requesting further information regarding Zuffa Boxing\u2019s immediate plans for the undefeated southpaw.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you got? What do you have? You have a cruiserweight division that [isn\u2019t competitive], are you going to be able to make any matchups for him? What do you actually have though?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Malignaggi then went on to reveal that he does not believe the chances of seeing a cruiserweight unification title clash between Opetaia and the victor of Gilberto Ramirez vs. David Benavidez have been impacted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that was a difficult fight to make anyway because Zurdo [Ramirez] and Benavidez are former super-middleweights at cruiserweight, Opetaia is a cruiserweight\/heavyweight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I think that was going to be a difficult one to make regardless, with the winner of Zurdo and Benavidez, I\u2019m not sure the winner of Zurdo-Benavidez was going to fight Opetaia anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/boxing\/story\/_\/id\/47592603\/sources-david-benavidez-fight-gilberto-ramirez-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Ramirez and Benavidez are expected to fight on Saturday, May 2, in Las Vegas<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As for Opetaia, manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=q8ECJRJ9M5M&amp;pp=ygUMbWljayBmcmFuY2lz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mick Francis has told Boxing King Media that unifications are still on the table<\/a> despite White previously stating he has no intentions of working with the four major sanctioning bodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zuffa Boxing made a statement signing as they revealed the acquisition of IBF cruiserweight world champion Jai Opetaia,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-422832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}