{"id":906151,"date":"2026-09-23T04:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T04:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/906151\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T04:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T04:16:12","slug":"shawn-porter-sums-up-jai-opetaias-chances-of-being-the-first-to-beat-david-benavidez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/906151\/","title":{"rendered":"Shawn Porter sums up Jai Opetaia’s chances of being the first to beat David Benavidez"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jai Opetaia<\/a> set up a long-awaited fight with David Benavidez<\/a> after his most recent win, and two-time welterweight world champion Shawn Porter has offered his thoughts on the showdown.<\/p>\n

Opetaia knocked out then-reigning WBC crusierweight titleholder Noel Mikaelian in the co-main event of last weekend\u2019s Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn bill, but Opetaia did not get his hands on the coveted WBC belt \u2013 with it being a non-sanctioned contest.<\/p>\n

Instead, Mikaelian was stripped of his status as champion during the aftermath, with interim champion Michal Cieslak being elevated to full world champion and positioned for a three-belt unification clash with WBA & WBO champion Benavidez on December 12 in Phoenix, Arizona.<\/p>\n

Whilst Opetaia did not become a three-time world champion with his triumph over Mikaelian, the victory has seen him installed as the mandatory challenger for the victor of Benavidez-Cieslak<\/a>, with Cinco De Mayo already being mentioned for a possible Benavidez-Opetaia bout.<\/p>\n

Speaking on \u2018The PorterWay Podcast\u2019<\/a>, Porter described Benavidez-Opetaia as a 60\/40 contest in favour of the champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that he [Opetaia] should move past the stuff outside of the ring. Once he moves past, this is still a legitimate [fight], I think it\u2019s a 60\/40 now \u2013 it is hard for me to let that go \u2013 in David Benavidez\u2019s favour. He [Opetaia] was flat last night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that it\u2019s going to be good and I do think that it is next. I don\u2019t think that David got in the ring for the show, I think that he legitimately wants to fight. I think that the piece that they had int the ring was like \u2018hey, let\u2019s make this happen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent rumours suggest that Benavidez \u2013 or Cieslak \u2013 and Opetaia\u2019s meeting could make up part of a mammoth May event, that may also feature a welterweight title unification involving Ryan Garcia and Teofimo Lopez.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jai Opetaia set up a long-awaited fight with David Benavidez after his most recent win, and two-time welterweight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-906151","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\/906151","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=906151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}