Dana White thinks Jai Opetaia is one huge night away from becoming a name the whole planet knows. White said a spectacular win over former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder could turn his Zuffa Boxing cruiserweight champion into a global star, Sky Sports reported.
The fight sits on the Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua undercard on Dec. 11, and it’s a big ask. Opetaia is leaving cruiserweight behind and moving up a division to share a ring with a man who used to hold a heavyweight title. White announced the matchup last week, according to MMA Fighting.
White spoke at the Zuffa Boxing 12 post-fight press conference in London, where UFC.com reported he fielded questions on Chev Clarke’s win and Da’Mazion Vanhouter before getting to Opetaia.
The booking also plants White inside a promotion Eddie Hearn keeps saying he has nothing to do with. Hearn has insisted White isn’t involved in Fury vs. Joshua. White has countered that he has a hand in both promoting and producing the card. Whoever’s right about the headliner, White’s cruiserweight champ is on the bill, so White will be around that night in some form.
The two of them keep swinging at each other in interviews. In London, White was asked about a rumor that Misfits Boxing had offered him and Hearn $10 million to box each other on one of its cards. He told All Out Fighting that no offer had reached him and then turned it into a referendum on Hearn’s fighting résumé.
“Eddie Hearn’s a bum. He’s never boxed, ever,” White said.
Misfits co-president Mams Taylor isn’t backing off the story. “We definitely sent out an offer,” Taylor wrote on social media. White, who said he’s 57 and last boxed at 38 when he was preparing to fight Tito Ortiz, has no interest in turning the feud into a paid event. He did leave one door open, though.
“If Eddie Hearn wants to fight, he can pick the gym here in London,” White said. “We’ll go down to the fcking gym, me and him, and we can fcking do it.”
That’s the noise around the card. The fight itself is the more interesting part.
White picked the word spectacular, and that one word is doing all the heavy lifting in his pitch. A cruiserweight champion climbing a division to beat a former heavyweight champ is already a story. A clean, grinding decision gets Opetaia a good write-up and a bump in the rankings conversation. If he wants the kind of fame White is selling, he probably has to leave Wilder on the canvas with the Fury vs. Joshua crowd already in their seats and paying attention. That’s a brutal standard to set for a guy giving up size, and I love that White said it out loud anyway. We find out Dec. 11.
