{"id":890186,"date":"2026-09-10T06:58:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/890186\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T06:58:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T06:58:22","slug":"dana-white-says-jai-opetaia-vs-noel-mikaelian-will-proceed-despite-cease-and-desist-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/890186\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana White says Jai Opetaia vs. Noel Mikaelian will proceed despite cease-and-desist letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

White assured that Saturday’s co-main event will happen after Don King Productions produced a formal letter<\/p>\n

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\"<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Sep 9, 2026<\/p>\n

at<\/p>\n

12:51 pm ET<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

1 min read<\/p>\n

Jai Opetaia vs. Noel Mikaelian will continue as planned, according to Zuffa Boxing and UFC CEO Dana White. Zuffa’s commitment to the fight comes after a cease-and-desist letter from Don King Productions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Don King Productions filed a cease-and-desist, claiming that it had exclusive promoting rights on Mikaelian’s career. The letter attempted to disrupt Saturday’s fight between Opetaia and Mikaelian, the co-main event for Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn<\/a>. White addressed the letter after “Dana White’s Contender Series,” assuring that the fight would happen as planned.<\/p>\n

“He’s fighting this weekend,” White told reporters about Mikaelian at Tuesday’s post-fight press conference. “If you look at us over the last 25 years, and now that we’re in boxing — this f—ing sport is the most unsophisticated sport I have ever seen in my life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s f—ed up for a reason. I’ve always had good dealings with Don. When have you ever seen a scenario with us where we go and try to interfere with someone’s contract? We don’t do it.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Paramount+ and watch Zuffa Boxing<\/a> for no additional fee — along with every UFC numbered event and UFC Fight Night is included with your subscription! Plans start as low as $8.99\/month or $89.99\/year!<\/p>\n

The formal letter claimed that TKO Group Holdings and Zuffa Boxing negotiated with Mikaelian “without DKP’s permission, consent or authorization.” Don King Productions described it as an “outrageous and a clear tortious interference with DKP’s agreement.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Opetaia is scheduled to defend his Zuffa and Ring Magazine cruiserweight championships against two-time WBC cruiserweight champion Mikaelian at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"White assured that Saturday’s co-main event will happen after Don King Productions produced a formal letter Sep 9,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,10359,68692,43137,126019,82,75400],"class_list":["post-890186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dana-white","tag-don-king","tag-jai-opetaia","tag-noel-mikaelian","tag-sports","tag-zuffa-boxing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890186","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=890186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}