{"id":90070,"date":"2025-08-24T18:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T18:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/90070\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T18:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T18:46:09","slug":"opetaia-set-for-heavyweight-if-no-unifications-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/90070\/","title":{"rendered":"Opetaia set for heavyweight, if no unifications made"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eddie Hearn usually knows what to do. With Gilberto \u201cZurdo\u201d Ramirez<\/a>, he isn’t quite sure. <\/p>\n

The division’s Ring and IBF champion Jai Opetaia is viewed as the world’s best cruiserweight among many, though the Australian ultimately wants to remove all doubt. <\/p>\n

To do that, he’ll need to get his hands on fellow divisional champions to unify a weight class previously ruled by undisputed heavyweight king Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>.
Opetaia (28-0, 22 KOs) has been clear about his intentions in recent months, wanting a matchup with Ramirez first. Hearn, his co-promoter, knows that and has engaged discussions<\/a> with the WBA\/WBO titleholder.However, just when the British-based promoter believed a deal would be struck, Ramirez had surgery to repair an ailing shoulder<\/a> that will sideline him for the remainder of 2025.<\/p>\n

Now, with the 34-year-old out of the mix for the foreseeable future, Opetaia has limited choices.<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, Ramirez got injured,” Hearn told The Punch Podcast. “But now, Jai has to fight his mandatory. That’s not ideal, but the other option is to move up to heavyweight. I just feel like it would be a shame for him not to unify the division first.”<\/p>\n

Insignificant title defenses have become a theme for Opetaia. In two appearances this year, he has made it look easy against short-notice assignment David Nyika<\/a> and Claudio Squeo<\/a> \u2014 both unbeaten \u2014 stopping them before the sixth round.
According to Hearn, Huseyin Cinkara<\/a> (23-0, 19 KOs) will likely get his shot after being reordered to negotiate terms earlier this week. The German native, 40, isn’t well-known and doesn’t have a significant victory but is the IBF’s No. 1 contender.
He returned with a first-round stoppage win over Juan Diaz in April, having torn ankle ligaments in December<\/a> which prompted Nyika into a premature step-up.<\/p>\n

Fighting low-level opposition has become tiresome, with Hearn keen to improve the 30-year-old’s legacy against world-class challenges. He reiterated that unless a title unification can be made in the near future, Opetaia might be moving from the 200-pound division.<\/p>\n

“I think we’ll fight Cinkara around November, December time,” Hearn said. “If we don’t get a unification after that, then it might be time to step up to heavyweight. It might be a little earlier than anticipated, but you can’t just wait around forever.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie Hearn usually knows what to do. With Gilberto \u201cZurdo\u201d Ramirez, he isn’t quite sure. The division’s Ring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6572,34696,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-90070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-eddie-hearn","10":"tag-jai-opetaia","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90070","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=90070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}