{"id":772623,"date":"2026-09-16T15:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T15:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/772623\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T15:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T15:16:09","slug":"tim-bradley-predicts-david-benavidez-vs-jai-opetaia-he-doesnt-deserve-to-be-on-the-p4p-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/772623\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Bradley predicts David Benavidez vs Jai Opetaia: “He doesn’t deserve to be on the p4p list”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jai Opetaia<\/a> is eyeing up a showdown with David Benavidez<\/a> after defeating Noel Mikaelian on Saturday, and two-division world champion Tim Bradley has offered his thoughts on the clash.<\/p>\n

Opetaia became the first man to halt Mikaelian<\/a>, as the Armenian-American was stopped after nine rounds of action in the co-main event of the Ryan Garcia vs Conor Benn bill.<\/p>\n

Despite Mikaelian being the WBC champion ahead of the bout, Opetaia did not get his hands on the belt, as the WBC instead refused to sanction the fight and have now stripped Mikaelian of their title.<\/p>\n

It means that Poland\u2019s Michal Cieslak has been elevated to full world champion, ahead of a reported showdown with WBA and WBO cruiserweight ruler Benavidez on December 12<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A victory for \u2018The Mexican Monster\u2019 in that contest is anticipated to set up an in-demand clash with Opetaia for 2027, but Bradley told his YouTube channel<\/a> that he can only see one winner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJai Opetaia, yo a** shouldn\u2019t be on the pound-for-pound list, period. You get that butter treatment with Zuffa. Benavidez is going to smoke your a**.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody thinks that performance last night was butter. Man, that dude slowed down, he got tired and s**t. You [Opetaia] have just got more athletic ability than most of these guys, that\u2019s just it. The vision is weak.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou and Benavidez are the hottest names in the division and Benavidez is going to whoop your a**! I can\u2019t wait!\u201d<\/p>\n

Whilst Benavidez is first focussed on becoming a three-belt (WBA, WBO & WBC) unified cruiserweight world champion, Opetaia has filed a federal lawsuit agains the IBF<\/a> in the hope of being reinstated as their champion after being stripped of the belt earlier this year after joining Zuffa Boxing.<\/p>\n

Should the IBF decide to award their vacant belt to Opetaia, Benavidez could square off with the Aussie for the undisputed cruiserweight championship around Cinco De Mayo in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jai Opetaia is eyeing up a showdown with David Benavidez after defeating Noel Mikaelian on Saturday, and two-division…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-772623","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\/772623","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=772623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}