{"id":649661,"date":"2026-06-20T22:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T22:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/649661\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T22:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T22:53:08","slug":"shakur-stevenson-predicts-david-benavidez-vs-jai-opetaia-at-cruiserweight-hes-a-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/649661\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson predicts David Benavidez vs Jai Opetaia at cruiserweight: “He’s a beast”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shakur Stevenson<\/a> has offered his prediction for a potential clash between David Benavidez<\/a> and Jai Opetaia<\/a>, describing one man as a \u201cbeast\u201d.<\/p>\n

Benavidez moved up to 200lbs last month, becoming a three-division world champion by dethroning Gilberto Ramirez with an emphatic sixth-round stoppage.<\/a><\/p>\n

But despite holding the WBO and WBA titles, \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 has since been named as the WBC\u2019s mandatory challenger, putting him in position to face cruiserweight champion Noel Mikaelian.<\/p>\n

It was previously reported that Mikaelian would take on Opetaia later this year, yet it now seems that Benavidez has torpedoed their negotiations.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old is now reportedly in \u201cadvanced\u201d talks to face Mikaelian later this year, potentially leaving Opetaia without an obvious opponent.<\/p>\n

The former IBF champion comes off a unanimous decision victory over Brandon Glanton, claiming the inaugural Zuffa cruiserweight title<\/a> in his first fight with Dana White\u2019s promotional outfit.<\/p>\n

Even without a traditional world title, Opetaia is still widely considered the top dog at 200lbs, while others might argue that Benavidez has already surpassed him.<\/p>\n

If the pair were to ever lock horns, four-division world champion Stevenson has told The Agnew Podcast<\/a> that he would favour the naturally smaller man.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got Benavidez. I think he is a beast \u2013 you have to be on an elite level to even be in the ring with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite becoming a unified cruiserweight champion, Benavidez is quite clearly a more natural operator at 175lbs, where he still holds the WBC strap.<\/p>\n

Opetaia, on the other hand, is a fully-fledged 200-pounder and would certainly boast a significant size advantage against the Mexican-American.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakur Stevenson has offered his prediction for a potential clash between David Benavidez and Jai Opetaia, describing one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-649661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}