Wednesday, December 3
GOLD COAST, Australia – To be on the seafront and streets of the Gold Coast and Surfer’s Paradise is to confront the reality that on the Australian east coast it is “schoolies” season – the time of year when the many 18 year olds leaving school exercise their rite of passage to spend in the region of a week partying to celebrate school, permanently, being out.
Surfer’s Paradise – a short walk from the Gold Coast & Exhibition Centre at which on Saturday Jai Opetaia, Australia’s finest fighter and the IBF cruiserweight champion, will make the latest defence of his title, this time against Germany’s Huseyin Cinkara – has long been Australia’s most popular schoolies destination. Surfer’s Paradise is a similarly short walk from Broadbeach, where the first schoolies parties, in the 1970s, took place. A reported 15,000 school leavers are in town to drink excessive amounts of sugary alcohol while dressing up for theme nights recognised as the painfully unimaginatively titled “party animal”, the inexplicable “good, evil, laconic”, and more. Such is the desire of Australia’s school leavers to celebrate the fact that until very recently most of them had long been among the most evil and laconic of all, in 2003 the Queensland government established a formal schoolies hub that means that for two weeks roads in central Surfers Paradise are closed and traffic is diverted to accommodate the hub, which operates from 7pm until midnight every night.
All of which perhaps makes the ability of Tasman Fighters, the promoters of Opetaia-Cinkara, to create the feeling of a fight-week bubble around the build-up to Opetaia’s third fight of 2025 something to be admired. Wednesday’s grand arrivals, by the outdoor swimming pool of the imposing casino The Star, wasn’t unlike, in appearance, a film premiere. Those present not making their own announced arrival either stood, sat on beanbags, or lied on sun loungers surrounded by the relevant fight-week marketing material to watch those who were. Ted Cofie, the British Ghanian retired cruiserweight whose 21-fight professional career mostly unfolded in Australia, is, in 2025, the owner of a consultancy business in Sydney, but he has been recruited by Stan – the influential broadcaster that so recently agreed terms with Tasman to broadcast Opetaia’s fights on its pay-per-view platform – to lead much of its coverage.
It was regardless difficult to avoid the conclusion that Jason Moloney, entering the first of a three-fight agreement with Tasman Fighters by fighting the Philippines’ Herlan Gomez on Saturday’s undercard, has a future in broadcasting when after his arrival he spoke and, like the experienced professional he is, very deliberately mentioned the platform Stan are providing and thanked Tasman for their hard work. The even more relaxed Teremoana Teremoana made a similar impression, such is the charm of the combination of his near-permanent smile and charisma, even if the 16 other non-heavyweights involved on Saturday evening would happily remind anyone suggesting as much that it is easy to be both happy and charming when not attempting to make weight. The 2024 Olympian is a natural showman but his warmth is, without question, sincere, as his making his way to the translator of his opponent on Saturday, Mexico’s German Garcia Montes, to shake his hand once he was no longer the centre of attention again made clear.
Opetaia, one of those making weight, is capable of being as relaxed as Teremoana when he is not preparing for fight night, but on the eve of doing so he can be particularly intense. He had appeared bemused at the setup unfolding in front of him and towards which he was being asked to contribute, but when for the first time, on stage, he was able to look at Cinkara – an opponent he was first supposed to fight at the start of 2025 – a subtle smile appeared to one corner of his mouth, one belying a fighter unmistakably preparing to take aim.
What followed immediately afterwards, in an ongoing attempt to promote Saturday’s pay-per-view – according to Tasman the tickets for the 6,000-capacity arena have already sold out – was a public Q&A at The Star’s Sports Bar, where Joseph Parker – the heavyweight from New Zealand who reportedly tested positive for cocaine on the day of his fight on October 25 with Fabio Wardley – was among those present, but it was two details unrelated to Saturday’s fight night that particularly attracted BoxingScene’s eye.
The fact that Saturday’s contest is also available, beyond Australia, to watch on UFC Fight Pass is no less significant within the boxing ecosystem, but what stood out was the extent of the progress Tasman are making and also the status quo that they are attempting to unseat. While Tasman’s Mick Francis spoke for the first time about their new agreement with UFC Fight Pass – Saturday’s fight is also his organisation’s first on pay-per-view with Stan – one of the big screens under which the Q&A was unfolding regularly showed adverts from Main Event, the Australian broadcaster that has long been established within the pay-per-view market and long had an agreement with the country’s leading fight promoter, No Limit.
At the very bottom of those big screens also could be seen the Sports Bar calendar of sports events they were promoting as being shown on the same big screens in the coming weeks. Among those, on December 19, is the match-up, for want of a better expression, between Anthony Joshua and the 28-year-old teenager Jake Paul (it perhaps is a good week in the Gold Coast to be advertising such figures). Paul-Joshua was listed as a “heavyweight” fight but could more accurately be described as a “freak show” and, its appearance, in physical form alongside Premier League fixtures and Ashes Tests and beneath a rugby talk show being led by Dan Carter, the New Zealander widely recognised as the finest player of all time – in other words, alongside respectable, high-level sports competitions and sportsmen – was almost surreal.
If Opetaia came to a similar conclusion he again gave very little away. His polite-yet-arguably-laconic manner when answering questions painted the picture of a fighter aware of the threat he is confronting in what deserves to be considered a bona fide fight.
Thursday, December 4
GOLD COAST, Australia – The Jai Opetaia-Huseyin Cinkara fight week bubble was taken to first the final pre-fight press conference, and then a promoter’s cocktail party, both in Surfer’s Paradise. The most successful promotions, regardless, cross over beyond the boxing community, as Thursday’s press conference at least briefly did with the presence and contributions of Bob La Castra, a councillor for the City of Gold Coast who described Saturday’s contest as “about as big as it gets”.
If the reality remains that there are bigger fights involving Opetaia in the cruiserweight division, his significance to the Australian fight scene should not be overlooked. BoxingScene counted three times on Thursday that he was compared to Mike Tyson. Those passionate about the heavyweight eras of the 1980s and 1990s would no doubt object, but what cannot be disputed is that Opetaia, at 30 years old, is at his physical peak, and that perhaps the only other of the world’s elite fighters who is as active as he is – Saturday’s fight is his third of 2025 – is Naoya Inoue. As with Inoue, Opetaia’s activity also appears to contribute so much to his success, as his promoter, Mick Francis of Tasman Fighters, also recognised.
“The worst thing for guys at this level is inactivity,” Francis said. “Inactivity – the guys go stale. Their minds go elsewhere. They’ve got to stay active. They’ve gotta stay in the media; stay in the gym.”
Jason Moloney’s opponent, Herlan Gomez of the Philippines, appeared to speak from a rehearsed script in an endearingly polite attempt to communicate in English; when BoxingScene attempted to speak to him upon the press conference’s conclusion (and it remains more than possible that what he then simply struggled with was English spoken with a thick south London accent) he struggled to understand or to respond. Incidentally, Jason’s twin Andrew is another who has since arrived in town.
Saturday’s fight is Opetaia’s first since the very recent, unexpected death following a heart attack of his long-term assistant trainer Keri Fui, and, in conversation with BoxingScene, the cruiserweight revealed that Tasman are preparing a tribute with which to remember him, pre-fight. “I think they’ve planned something,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to do with the planning, I just want to focus on winning the fight. My tribute to Keri’s winning.”
Tickets for the cocktail party, in the penthouse of the same hotel at which the press conference was staged, cost $99AUD and had been advertised with the promise of the newsworthy Joseph Parker, the Irish light heavyweight Conor Wallace, and Spencer Brown, “manager of Tyson Fury”, in attendance. On the night only Wallace appeared, but any who parted with their hard-earned money not only had the opportunity of meeting Wallace, Francis and some of Stan’s on-screen talent, of rubbing shoulders with, among others, the master of ceremonies Thomas Treiber and Maria Rekowski – said to be her country’s first female boxing promoter – and of indulging in a particularly generous four-hour drinks package and oysters and canapés, they could also bid in the auction for two framed-and-signed Opetaia fight posters. The first, for Opetaia-Mairis Breidis II, on the undercard of Fury-Oleksandr Usyk in May 2024, was sold for $2,000. The second, for Opetaia-David Nyika, was sold for $1,600. Francis and Wallace also spoke, on stage, about what they hope will be next in the Irishman’s career – a fight with the light-heavyweight world champion Dmitry Bivol, one of the very finest fighters in the world.
Friday, December 5
GOLD COAST, Australia – Friday afternoon’s weigh-in, at the Gold Coast Convention Centre, where on Saturday the champion Jai Opetaia and his mandatory challenger Huseyin Cinkara will contest the IBF cruiserweight title, was the latest that was ceremonial. The fighters involved in Saturday’s promotion had weighed in, behind closed doors, on Friday morning.
That fighters have longer to refuel and rehydrate typically means that the existence of ceremonial weigh-ins make fights safer – at least on the occasions when the additional recovery time before the fight starts doesn’t present a considerably bigger fighter with a more significant physical advantage than he or she was previously on course to have. What’s consistent, regardless, is how much healthier and therefore how much more photogenic fighters appear at ceremonial weigh-ins, which in turn can strengthen a promoter or broadcaster’s attempts to sell a fight.
The job of Stan, the influential Australian broadcaster that has the Opetaia-Cinkara pay-per-view to sell after entering an agreement with Tasman Fighters, will have been made easier, but their on-screen talent could still repeatedly be heard doing their very best to make Opetaia’s third title defence of 2025 seem the most important of all.
Essential to most, if not all, weigh-ins, are dance music playlists used to enhance the occasion. On Friday the songs of the celebrated group Rufus du Sol – having so recently finished, in Sydney, the highest selling electronic music tour of all time; one on which they reportedly sold 750,000 tickets and reached 1.5m fans – and the DJ FISHER, he of residencies on the party island of Ibiza, were among those that could be heard providing an Australian flavour to the otherwise routine task of professional fighters weighing in at the weight at which they were supposed to weigh.
Similarly essential are fighters’ bloated entourages seeking to revel in the limelight for however long they can, but Opetaia’s – though he is often surrounded by those close to him – appears a rare exception to that rule.
BoxingScene first witnessed how closely Opetaia and Cinkara were stood to each other while they watched the undercard fighters face off and “make weight”, and how no attempts were made from either fighter or those alongside them to invade the other group’s personal space, painting the picture of a rare sense of security and mutual respect. When they were then called to the stage, some of those around Opetaia remained where they were, because they apparently had little desire to appear on camera and because they apparently were aware that Opetaia didn’t require their support. Even Opetaia’s father and trainer Tapu kept his distance, demonstrating again that the champion and those he keeps around him continue to keep their feet on the ground.
After the weigh-in had concluded, the extroverted Teremoana Teremoana – from nearby Brisbane – was among those who remained at the Gold Coast Exhibition Centre the soak up the atmosphere. Spencer Brown was also present, and told BoxingScene that he had arrived from Dubai less than 24 hours earlier and would be flying all the way back to the UK, for a meeting with Tyson Fury, within a matter of days.
When the Turkish German Cinkara weighed in he wore the same fur hat shown in all of the marketing material promoting Saturday’s fight which, he explained to BoxingScene is “the dress of Turkish warriors, back in the day”.
“They used to go to war – they’d wear that hat and cap to war,” he continued. “I’m just representing our people. From 500AD onwards – thousands of years we’ve been wearing this. It’s in my blood – it’s who I am. I love my history, so I like to show my history to show my people.
“I’m keeping it quiet [whether I’ll wear it to the ring tomorrow], because there’s another costume I’m going to bring in.”
Cinkara is as proud of his Turkish roots as Opetaia is proud that his are Samoan, which perhaps contributes to the respect that exists between them. It’s probable that Opetaia also respects Cinkara’s determination to fight him, given the extent to which he feels he has been avoided by Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and Badou Jack, as was most recently demonstrated when plans for Ramirez to fight David Benavidez were revealed.
“Mick [Francis is] our promoter, he’s pissed off at that,” the super middleweight Max McIntyre, among Opetaia’s sparring partners, told BoxingScene, “but ‘cause Jai’s got a fight coming up he says ‘It doesn’t fucking matter’. ‘It doesn’t matter until I’ve gotten past this guy anyway.’
“I think he’s just really focused on the task at hand and not thinking about it. That would have to annoy you. It’s hard, ‘cause that’s a big-money fight, Benavidez-Gilberto Ramirez.”
The biggest loser of Friday’s weigh-in being ceremonial may yet prove to be Paul Fleming, who after almost three years of inactivity is moving up from super featherweight to junior welterweight to fight the younger, fresher, bigger Jake Wyllie in perhaps the most competitive undercard match-up on the bill. Fleming, regardless, looked better on the scales than he perhaps had been expected to, but it was Wyllie, as has come to be expected of him, who looked strong, healthy and a natural at the weight.
Saturday, December 6
GOLD COAST, Australia – Attending Jai Opetaia-Huseyin Cinkara proved little short of an attack on the senses.
Any walking into the Gold Coast Convention Centre on Saturday evening first confronted not only stools selling Opetaia-branded clothing, but countless others wearing it (Team Moloney t-shirts, in support of the bantamweight Jason on the occasion of his first fight back in his home country in over three years, were also very common).
The IBF cruiserweight champion is as proud of being Australian as he is of his Samoan heritage and, as the focal point of Saturday’s promotion, the influence of both cultures could regularly be seen, heard and felt. Before he made his way to the ring to confront his challenger the heavyweight Teremoana Teremoana, the most natural of showmen, had stopped German Garcia Montes inside a round and marked their fight’s conclusion by performing, from the centre of the ring, the haka. Paul Fleming, every inch as natural a showman but, in reality, a considerably less valuable commodity on account of his being 37 years old and a natural junior lightweight, followed him doing so by making his ring walk to indigenous music while joined by indigenous musicians and three of his seven children.
By some distance, however – and it is fitting that that would be the case – the most memorable contribution to the evening, until Opetaia stopped Cinkara with the most concussive of punches, was the tribute promoters Tasman Fighters paid to the late Keri Fiu, Opetaia’s long-term assistant trainer and most recently the trainer of Justis Huni. Fiu died, after collapsing during a training session with Huni, of a heart attack, contributing to Huni’s rematch with Kiki Toa Leutele being postponed.
The tribute to who was described as a “proud Samoan man” involved a group of Samoan singers complementing a photo montage of Fiu’s life, so much of which he gave to boxing, as photos of him in gyms and with Joseph Parker (another of Samoan descent), Tyson Fury, Ryan Garcia, Ben Whittaker, Moses Itauma and more again showed. Footage of Tasman’s Mick Francis and Opetaia speaking about him at his recent memorial followed, and showed the charisma and humour with which Opetaia, so often so intense during fight weeks, is capable of speaking to an audience when not on the eve of a fight. There was then a dancing tribute from the King Siva Academy, Huni and Francis presenting wreaths of red flowers to those of the Fiu family who were present, the boxing tradition of the 12 bells and then, finally, another song from a group of Samoan drummers. Had it not all been so moving to observe, the cultural influences being witnessed would have been something about which to feel charmed.
When the Turkish German Cinkara was later introduced as Opetaia’s opponent it was after the Turkish, not German, national anthem was played, and he was dressed as an ancient Turkish warrior. The national anthems of both Australia and Samoa played when came the turn of Opetaia, who among others was being watched by Liam Paro and Johnny Lewis, the former trainer of none other than Kostya Tszyu.
To watch Opetaia fight is to observe a both aggressive-and-destructive world-class fighter recklessly fight back, instead of protect himself, when he has been hurt. As against David Nyika in January, he regardless produced the nature of knockout that made it increasingly uncomfortable to observe the motionless Cinkara receive medical attention until he eventually started to move and recover. Opetaia, unquestionably, is a fighter at his physical peak and as ruthless as he is clinical. The stoppages of Nyika and Cinkara may be the two most brutal of any professional fighter in 2025. That a knockout of that chilling nature – given everything that preceded it – was what, above all else, observers would have taken away with them into the night said so much about its impact, which for all of Opetaia’s dissatisfaction would no doubt have particularly pleased the pay-per-view broadcaster Stan.
It was revealing of the high standards he sets for himself and of his winning mentality – and also of his honesty towards the top of a profession built as much on mirrors as on smoke – that he was so openly critical of his performance. His unhappiness meant him – unusually – refusing to speak to the media, post-fight, before seeing that only one reporter was left and finally agreeing to talk.
Whether that was a reflection of him by then having been soothed ultimately remains unclear, but he spoke of having become “complacent” and had a far more bruised-and-marked-up face than would have been anticipated given the one-sided nature of the contest – something that perhaps goes someway to explaining his perception of what unfolded in the ring.
