{"id":773931,"date":"2026-09-17T19:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T19:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/773931\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T19:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T19:50:09","slug":"roy-jones-jr-delivers-verdict-on-david-benavidez-vs-jai-opetaia-its-a-harder-fight-than-usyk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/773931\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Jones Jr delivers verdict on David Benavidez vs Jai Opetaia: “It’s a harder fight than Usyk”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jai Opetaia<\/a> is in hot pursuit of David Benavidez<\/a> following his latest win and fan-favourite four-division world champion Roy Jones Jr has a unique outlook on the fight, as hype around the potential match-up starts to build.<\/p>\n

Opetaia became the first man to stop reigning WBC cruiserweight world champion Noel Mikaelian, as he halted the Armenian-American in round nine of a bout where the WBC title was not at stake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The WBC have now stripped Mikaelian of his title and elevated Michal CIeslak<\/a> as their new champion, ahead of a showdown with unified WBA and WBO titleholder David Benavidez reportedly on Saturday, December 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Should Benavidez come through that three-belt unification unscathed, a showdown with Opetaia is expected to follow.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Parimatch<\/a>, Jones claimed that Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> would have been an easier fight for Benavidez than Australia\u2019s Opetaia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUsyk was an easier fight for him [Benavidez] than Opetaia is. Opetaia is younger, stronger. Opetaia is, to me, much more dangerous for David Benavidez than Usyk is. I thought all along he should\u2019ve taken Usyk over Opetaia.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now that he has Opetaia, he\u2019s gotta take him instead, because that\u2019s all that\u2019s left for him unless he goes and fights the light heavyweights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he fought [Dmitry] Bivol or [Artur] Beterbiev, those are highly interesting fights too. Jai Opetaia showed a lot of good things over the weekend. He\u2019s big, but Benavidez is too. He does have punching power. He has shock on his punches, and those are the things that make a difference in the fight sometimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to see how Benavidez takes his punch. If Benavidez takes his punch, then he\u2019s gonna be in trouble, because Benavidez has a work rate out of this world. But we gotta see: can Benavidez take his punch first?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The victor of Benavidez-Cieslak will be ordered to take on Opetaia<\/a>, with fight fans hoping that no further hurdles get in the way of one of the most intriguing bouts in the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jai Opetaia is in hot pursuit of David Benavidez following his latest win and fan-favourite four-division world champion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-773931","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\/773931","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=773931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}