GOLD COAST, Australia – At the grand arrivals for his IBF cruiserweight title defence against Huseyin Cinkara, Jai Opetaia – the fighter around which Saturday’s promotion revolves – had minimal interest in the bright lights and the cameras complementing the occasion at The Star casino so close to the Gold Coast Exhibition Centre where he and Cinkara will fight.
For all that he is physically imposing and photogenic in the way that so many of the most naturally athletic and typically clean-living professional athletes are, he was wearing a baggy t-shirt that did little to flatter his physique, even though, for the very first time, he and his challenger were coming face to face.
He watched the arrivals of the many undercard fighters simply because he was waiting his turn – it’s far from uncommon for a main-event fighter to be late – and he again gave little away. But it was then, when he was called to the platform shortly after Cinkara, that a subtle, instinctive smile appeared in the corner of his mouth, because he was sizing up his Turkish German opponent and aware of the reality that they, finally, are about to fight.
Cinkara is Opetaia’s third challenger of 2025 – David Nyika and Claudio Squeo were stopped in four and then five rounds – but in January he had been scheduled to be his first. With less than a month until fight night injury ruled him out and he was replaced by Nyika, which means that over a year has passed since Opetaia first started preparing for him and he more consistently started being on the champion’s mind.
Opetaia, 30, was again present throughout Thursday’s undercard press conference, and when that for the main event started thereafter he, unlike so many of his contemporaries, offered little by way of the attention seeking or hyperbole so commonplace when, as he no doubt is, a fighter is aware of the value of promoting and therefore selling his latest fight.
Mid-fight week the Australian can be particularly intense, which is in contrast to the warmer, humorous and more relaxed figure he cuts considerably further away from fight night. What’s regardless consistent is his reluctance to speak for the sake of speaking; to pretend to be anyone other than who he is.
“I’m not into it at all,” he told BoxingScene of the sometimes glamorous build-up to Saturday’s contest. “No. Man, all I wanna do is win the fight, you know what I mean?
“All I’m focusing on is getting my hand raised, because no matter how much fucking jewellery you wear or what car you’ve got, if you lose the fight, no one cares, do they? I just wanna go down as the best fucking fighter that people have seen. That’s what I’m chasing. Not superstardom.
“I don’t know. I’m not worried about that. Like I said, I’m just focusing on the fight, winning the fight, and doing my thing.”
He could well have answered similarly at the Q&A session at the Sports Bar of The Star at which he was introduced as the “guest of honour”, but, for all of his willingness to participate, he gave the impression that instead of being the focal point of the occasion he would have preferred to have remained sat with his friends at the back.
It was when he was asked about his pride in representing, like the heavyweights David Tua and Joseph Parker, his Samoan heritage that he was most engaged, in the same way that at Thursday’s press conference, instead of about himself he favoured speaking of the importance of the promising younger fighters featuring on Saturday’s undercard benefitting from the nature of platform he struggled without until fighting Mairis Breidis in July 2022.
In both he revealed, despite his presence towards the top of one of the most sycophantic and egotistical of all professional cultures, someone who not only remains in touch with his roots but perhaps an awareness of how much he still has to achieve.
“We didn’t have world champions [in Australia] and stuff to fight under when I was coming through, so it’s good to have this platform and build up a show in boxing,” he explained. “It’s good. I’ve been in their shoes before. I’ve been hungry; I’ve been young, and stuff like that. I’m still hungry, you know what I mean? And I’m still young. But I’ve been fighting in this game for a long, long time.
“I’ve been professional since I was 19, so it’s good to give these boys a platform and rocket their career a bit faster than mine was. I was fighting, fucking, on any shows. I was fighting for no money. That’s why – people get confused these days. They look for the big pay cheques straight away. I was 19-0 before I got my first pay cheque, you know what I mean? You gotta invest in yourself; do the hard yards, and the rest will fall into place.
“Fucking yeah,” he then responded when asked if he was being reminded of how far he has come. “Especially when I look around and see my cousin here, and my brother. We started from nothing, you know? We’ve got tracksuits now – we’ve got a team tracksuit now, brother. Before we just had a shirt, you know, and the shirts were hard enough to get, and not everyone was wearing ‘em, we just had, maybe, four or five shirts. Fucking sharing ‘em around – when I’d jump in the ring he’d put my shirt on. Now everyone gets their own tracksuits. We’ve come a long way. The tracksuits’ just an analogy, but we’ve come a very long way.”
If Opetaia established himself as the world’s leading cruiserweight on the night he so dramatically resisted a broken jaw to supplant Breidis, in 2025, partly on account of his struggles to secure unification showdowns with Badou Jack and Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, there are observers of the sport who would argue that Mexico’s Ramirez deserves that position instead. Evander Holyfield, David Haye and Oleksandr Usyk are recognised as the three finest cruiserweights in history; Opetaia is, like Holyfield, Haye and Usyk, considered on course for a future in the heavyweight division, but for all of his abilities he requires victories over Jack and Ramirez if he is to forever earn parity with them at 200lbs.
He so recently was also at risk of being frustrated further when it was revealed that Ramirez is instead prioritising a fight with David Benavidez, the light heavyweight, but Opetaia’s focus and sense of perspective – one perhaps enhanced by the recent, unexpected death following a heart attack of his long-term assistant trainer Keri Fui – and his indifference to the business side of boxing contributes to him not considering what’s next.
“Doesn’t bother me, man,” he said. “The fight with Ramirez – we weren’t [planning on] fighting him until later in the year anyway. If he gets this fight done it just secures that later on in the year. Everyone’s just fucking shouting and screaming – just let me fucking fight, bro, that’s all I wanna do.
“I honestly don’t even – they say ‘Fight this guy’, I’ll fight ‘em. I wasn’t sure if I was fighting him; someone else. They fucking told me, what? Nine, 10 weeks ago, ‘You’re fighting Cinkara’. ‘Let’s do it.’ Before that they said ‘He’s gonna step aside – you’re gonna fight someone else’. ‘Let’s do it.’ I just train. Just train. Whoever I’ve got I’ve got.”
Before he makes his way to the ring on Saturday his promoters Tasman Fighters will pay tribute to Fui. Fui’s funeral took place less than a month before fight night – the heavyweight Justis Huni’s rematch with Kiki Toa Leutele was cancelled partly on account of his death – but for all of his stoicism, the reality that Opetaia is in mourning, and the absence of Fui’s comforting presence on fight night, will provide a different test of the cruiserweight’s already-proven mental strength.
“Keri was a part of our team, man,” he said. “He was our assistant coach. But I know what Keri would want and we’ve dug a bit deeper and trained a bit harder for him.
“I’ve had adversity throughout my whole career. I lost my nan two weeks before when I fought for the world title [against Breidis]. They had her burial the week before – I couldn’t make it. I’ve been here before – I’ve been in these shit situations and stuff like that. It’s not new to me, having to put my feelings to the side and push on. We’re here now, we want to push forward – and we’ve got a fucking job to do.
“It’s the sacrifices that I’ve had to make. If I’m half-arsing it or not training my best or not getting the most out of it, what am I making these sacrifices for? I’m willing to dig deep and do what I need to do to win these fights because I’ve done my hard yards – I haven’t let anything get in the way.
“He was like family. He was a very, very close friend of ours. Unfortunately these things happen, and, fuck, we’ve gotta push on, don’t we?”
By the time of Friday afternoon’s ceremonial weigh-in, Opetaia and Cinkara were sufficiently comfortable in each other’s presence for the 40-year-old challenger to remain within feet of the champion and his entourage without considering the need for any nature of statement to be made. Opetaia, once again without the air of someone aware that the occasion was his more than any other’s, observed the undercard fighters weighing in if he wasn’t casually talking to those around him until he and Cinkara were called to the stage.
It is his reputation – as one of his country’s finest ever fighters – in which the influential Australian broadcaster Stan has just invested to deliver a pay-per-view for Saturday that UFC Fight Pass has committed to broadcasting overseas. Those working on behalf of Stan were no doubt instructed to promote the value of everything surrounding Saturday but were given little assistance from Opetaia, who was simply again being authentic when he described it as “another day at the office”, regardless of how ineffective, for a broadcaster, such a line would have been.
That his father and trainer Tapu resisted joining him on stage while he was the centre of attention perhaps revealed even more about the modest make-up of one of the world’s finest, and proudest, fighters.
The plans for Ramirez-Benavidez to be staged in Las Vegas demonstrate that the US remains the centre of the boxing universe. Opetaia fought in the UK and Saudi Arabia before remaining in his home city for each of his three fights in 2025. He will almost certainly have to again travel if he is to fight the winners of Jack-Norair Mikaeljan and Ramirez-Benavidez, but if he does so there is ultimately little question of where it is his heart will remain.
“[Cinkara’s] relaxed,” said Opetaia. “He’s a bit tall; he’s skinny. He’s an older dude, you know? He’s been here before, so he’s been around the block.
“He’s good, bro. He’s not a bad little boxer, you know what I mean? He’s not just a brawler. I feel like he wants to brawl because he wants to make it 50-50, but who knows, bro? He’s showcased skills against other fighters. When he showcases skills against me, what’s he gonna bring? Everything I’ve watched, I’ve watched him fucking bash people [like they are] a punching bag. That’s now how we fight, is it? We’re definitely expecting a different version of him.
“He’s gutsy. He’s fucking got decent power. He’s hungry.
“They’re all confident. Everyone that comes in the fight is confident before the fight. They believe in themselves; they’ve had people around them the whole fucking camp going ‘You can do it; you can do it’. When you’re in that ring by yourself it’s a whole different ball game. When they start to see the movement and feel the power, or get hit with some shit, they think ‘Fuck, this is a different level’, you know? It’s humbling. Then, ‘Thank you so much – you’re fast’, and blah, blah. They’re all like this. I see it in them. They all think this is their time to become a world champion. ‘This is my time to become undisputed.’
“Every fight is a statement. Every fight, we have to step in the ring and we have to perform well. It’s not just one fight, this one. We’ve gotta make no mistakes. Every single time we’re in the ring we have to win and win good – and I like doing clinics. Putting on a good clinic; boxing well. Not everything has to be a knockout. If the knockout comes, it comes. But boxing clinics is my thing.
“I’m expecting a good fight. I don’t think he’s going to be an easy fight at all. You grow; you get better.
“I think I can still get better, to be honest. I don’t think I’m good enough; I feel like can improve, always, in certain things.
“Every time I fight here it builds up the whole country. There’s no other world champions putting on big shows here in Australia. When I fight it’s a big statement, for Australia, for the rest of the world, to move forward, build the profile and get these fights that are so hard to get over the line as well.”
