Hearn threatens to sue Opetaia.
Jai Opetaia’s career is a strange one if you just look at the facts alone. For one thing, he is a two-time IBF cruiserweight champion and was recently stripped of the title for a second time, but he has never lost a bout in the ring.
The first time he was stripped of it was over choosing to fight Ellis Zorro instead of immediately honouring his mandatory challenger, who was Mairis Briedis at the time.
Opetaia would wreck Zorro in a round, then beat Briedis in a rematch (having won the belt off him in the first place) to win the belt for a second time.
Then earlier this year, he was stripped of his IBF title again following the confirmation that his debut under Zuffa Boxing was for their inaugural cruiserweight world title.
He would beat Brandon Glanton to become the Zuffa Boxing champion, but he would end up losing his universally recognised championship in the process. And in response, Opetaia filed a lawsuit earlier this week, alleging that the IBF conspired with the other sanctioning bodies to take their belt off him and deter other fighters from joining Zuffa.
In the lawsuit, Opetaia also named Eddie Hearn, his former promoter at Matchroom Boxing. Not one to take such things lying down, Hearn has now provided a statement on the matter.
“I take these kind of accusations unbelievably seriously. You’ve seen it before in the past [with Jake Paul]”, he told iFL TV. “You wanna mention my name when you talk about corruption in boxin’? I’ve instructed my lawyers today to write to his [Opetaia’s] lawyers and let him know, ‘You withdraw me from that complaint, you retract any statement, or I will sue you for defamation.'”
Truly, the boxing world has never been a simple one to live in.
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