BoxRec

Jai Opetaia-Huseyin Cinkara: IBF Orders Mandatory Cruiserweight Title Defense

Jai Opetaia’s name was floated as an attractive potential option to the winner of an upcoming cruiserweight title unification bout.

Steps will have to be taken if he prefers that more attractive option than the one now on his plate.

The Ring has confirmed that Sydney’s Opetaia was instructed to next defend his IBF cruiserweight title versus Huseyin Cinkara. The two sides were ordered by the sanctioning body to enter negotiations for their mandatory title fight.

Opetaia (26-0, 20 knockouts) is The Ring champion and IBF titleholder. He has yet to make a mandatory defense from either of his two alphabet title reigns. In fact, his failure to honor a prior order forced him to be stripped of the belt last December.

Cinkara (22-0, 18 KOs) is unheralded but followed the proper steps to earn his No. 1 ranking. The 39-year-old from Istanbul, Turkey via Speyer, Germany defeated Armend Xhoxhaj (18-4, 9 KOs) via second-round knockout in their April 24 IBF title eliminator. With the win, Cinkara was named the No. 1 contender.

Opetaia regained the belt three weeks later in a repeat victory over former three-time titlist Mairis Briedis (28-3, 20 KOs) on May 18 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Their bout was a sequel to Opetaia’s thrilling July 2022 victory to lift The Ring championship and IBF belt from Briedis.

The first win came at a heavy price. Opetaia suffered a broken jaw and also underwent surgery for an unrelated shoulder injury. All told, it left him out of the ring for 14 months. He’s since crammed in four RING championship title defenses in a span of just 54 weeks.

However, his decision to face unranked Ellis Zorro last December rather than Briedis—his mandatory challenger at the time—resulted in the end of his IBF reign.

The bout was his first of three straight on the Riyadh Season circuit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Opetaia’s second appearance in boxing’s latest hotbed was his rematch versus Briedis. They were scheduled to meet in February under the originally scheduled Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury undisputed heavyweight championship. The entire show was postponed by three months when Fury (34-1-1, 24 KOs) suffered a cut in sparring and was forced to delay the anticipated clash.

Their second act also went the distance, with Opetaia taking a well-earned decision in their vacant title fight.

Opetaia since defended his championship in an Oct. 12 sixth-round knockout of Jack Massey on the Artur Beterbiev-Dmitrii Bivol undercard.

The ordered mandatory fight comes just four weeks out from the Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez-Chris Billam Smith WBA/WBO unification bout in Riyadh. It was loosely rumored that the winner would be poised to further unify versus Opetaia.

However, there remains plenty of work to be done to arrive at that destination.

Jai Opetaia’s mandatory defense against Huseyin Cinkara set for January 8

Lineal cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia will be back in the ring less than three months after his last fight, taking on Huseyin Cinkara, the mandatory challenger to Opetaia’s IBF world title.

Ben Damon, an Australian boxing broadcaster, confirmed the news. Opetaia vs. Cinkara will take place at the Gold Coast Convention Centre.

Opetaia, 26-0 (20 KOs), last fought on October 12 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, making a voluntary defense against Jack Massey and scoring a sixth-round stoppage.

That was Opetaia’s third straight appearance at the Kingdom Arena. The fight with Cinkara will be his first time performing in front of his home crowd — he lives in the nearby city of Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia — since winning his first world title and the lineal championship there in his first fight with Mairis Briedis in July 2022.

Opetaia made one defense of the IBF belt and then vacated it in order to face Ellis Zorro in December 2023. He wound up rematching Briedis this May, with the vacant IBF title on the line, and won another unanimous decision.

This time, the 29-year-old Opetaia is opting to hold on to the title, especially with the prospect of a unification bout on the horizon. The top challenger for Opetaia’s throne is someone who has already unified, Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez, who now has both the WBA and WBO belts following his clear unanimous decision over Chris Billam-Smith last weekend.

The 39-year-old Cinkara became the IBF’s mandatory challenger after winning an eliminator in April, knocking out Armend Xhoxhaj in four minutes and moving to 22-0 (18 KOs) in the process.

Opetaia’s team had requested an exception from the IBF to be allowed to defend the IBF belt against Massey.

The IBF had approved that request under multiple conditions, including that Opetaia-Massey couldn’t take place any later than October 12; the winner of Opetaia-Massey must defend the IBF title by January 20, 2025; and that the IBF would not grant any more exceptions for defending against the cruiserweight mandatory challenger.

IBF rules in general prohibit consecutive voluntary defenses.

Nice turnaround for Jai.

Cinkara’s record looks good. But who is he?

IBF really do have the worst mandatories 99% of the time.

39-year-old mandatory with a puffed up record but Jai can only fight who they put in front of him and at least he’s staying busy. Probably won’t go more than a few rounds

Hate this as a mandatory, why would a 39 year old get a mando spot for fighting bin men…

Jai vs Ramirez has to be the fight, it’s so clearly the fight, just make the fight….

(Or bert or usyk)…

gregregegg wrote: ↑21 Nov 2024, 03:59 Hate this as a mandatory, why would a 39 year old get a mando spot for fighting bin men…

Jai vs Ramirez has to be the fight, it’s so clearly the fight, just make the fight….

(Or bert or usyk)…

Although I think it would be one-sided, Jai vs Ramirez is the only major fight that makes sense at cruiserweight at this point.

I will go to this fight because it's Jai. I don't expect it to be competitive though. I won't be surprised if they have Kambo fighting a patsy as the main preliminary to build interest in a Paro v Kambo fight later in the year.

Let's hope they put some effort and thought into putting on some competitive and interesting preliminary bouts.

Jai will get a few rounds maybe if he wants them until the ko is there for the taking .

Jai v Ramirez.

Nothing else please

Justis Huni vs. Shaun Potgieter added to the card

Ruthless-RKO wrote: ↑14 Dec 2024, 07:17

Positive: Opetaia didn't need this fight.
Negative: We will probably get a worse opponent and Cinkara will get the fight some point later down the line.

Alright, which IBF ranked fighter do you think will be the replacement. I reckon the number five ranked Ngabu will get the call. He smoked Floyd Mason and is used to Australia. Be a big payday for him I think.

david nyika listed as the opponent now , 6'6 olympic bronze medalist but not much pro experience

David Nyika steps in to face Jai Opetaia on January 8th

2020 Olympic bronze medalist David Nyika has reportedly agreed to battle IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia on short notice

With IBF cruiserweight mandatory Huseyin Cinkara out of commission, Jake Donovan reports that 2020 Olympic bronze medalist David Nyika will step up to face Jai Opetaia on January 8th in Broadbeach.

Per Donovan, this will satisfy Opetaia’s (26-0, 20 KO) mandatory obligation, meaning he won’t have to revisit the Cinkara fight should he emerge victorious. This is good news, as Cinkara is up there with Apinun Khongsong, Michael Dasmarinas, and Michael Eifert in the pantheon of terrible IBF mandatories.

Nyika (10-0, 9 KO) has yet to see the sixth round as a pro, though he’s woefully short on quality victories. His 2024 campaign saw him take out unheralded German Michael Seitz and overcooked former light heavyweight Tommy Karpency, handing the latter his sixth knockout loss in the process.

Still, a strong amateur pedigree and some Australia vs New Zealand beef make him a solid replacement, and at 29 years old, it’s not like a loss to Opetaia will permanently scuttle Nyika’s chance at ever claiming a world title.

This is a much funner fight.

I hope Nikita had been training a lot cause there is barely any time left for sparing (going to be hard to get quality sparing now too cause who wants to get beat up on Christmas…

I mainly Hope he isn’t currently 250lb and is going to have to reck himself to make weight.

Jai should be too good, but Nikita is big and can box and or whack.

This fight is more interesting for sure.
The other fight would'e been a waste of time.

Let's hope unification is next. I don't wanna see anything else next for Jai.

Next Wednesday!!

Teremoana Jr on the undercard too. Quick turnaround after Saudi a couple of weeks ago.

Should be fun while it lasts.

1549395 wrote: ↑05 Jan 2025, 11:09 Teremoana Jr on the undercard too. Quick turnaround after Saudi a couple of weeks ago.

Should be fun while it lasts.

Has he got an opponent? I expect a first round KO anyway

JamesPhilips wrote: ↑05 Jan 2025, 11:36

1549395 wrote: ↑05 Jan 2025, 11:09 Teremoana Jr on the undercard too. Quick turnaround after Saudi a couple of weeks ago.

Should be fun while it lasts.

Has he got an opponent? I expect a first round KO anyway

His opponent is 11-1 and has previously beaten...nobody of note.

Osasu Otobo aka "Who?"

1549395 wrote: ↑05 Jan 2025, 11:53

JamesPhilips wrote: ↑05 Jan 2025, 11:36

1549395 wrote: ↑05 Jan 2025, 11:09 Teremoana Jr on the undercard too. Quick turnaround after Saudi a couple of weeks ago.

Should be fun while it lasts.

Has he got an opponent? I expect a first round KO anyway

His opponent is 11-1 and has previously beaten...nobody of note.

Osasu Otobo aka "Who?"

Ok so Teremoana Ko 1

This should be a clash of the titans

Jai Opetaia and David Nyika both weighed in at 199.5 pounds.

Full weigh-in results as follows...

Justis Huni (241.4lbs) vs Shaun Potgieter (251.1lbs)

Teremoana Jnr (266.8lbs) vs Osasu Otobo (284.8lbs)

Max McIntyre (167.7lbs) vs Abdulselam Saman (167.4lbs)

Ben Mahoney (153.5lbs) vs Fan Zhang (152.7lbs)

Taylah Gentzen (137.5lbs) vs Shauna Browne (138.4lbs)

Billy McAllister (173.9lbs) vs Jordan Towns (174.8lbs)

Tony Ingram (125.8lbs) vs Runqi Zhou (125.4lbs)

Kodi Shallali (156.4lbs) vs Albert Tu'ua (156lbs)

Jai Williams (126.9lbs) vs Jag Guthmann-Chester (126.7lbs)

JamesPhilips wrote: ↑05 Jan 2025, 12:05

1549395 wrote: ↑05 Jan 2025, 11:53

JamesPhilips wrote: ↑05 Jan 2025, 11:36

Has he got an opponent? I expect a first round KO anyway

His opponent is 11-1 and has previously beaten...nobody of note.

Osasu Otobo aka "Who?"

Ok so Teremoana Ko 1

After seeing the opponent weigh in I back this even more. Can’t find a bookie offering a price though