A few days prior to Jai Opetaia’s Zuffa Boxing 4 title fight against Brandon Glanton, International Boxing Federation (IBF) announced it would not take part in sanctioning the cruiserweight showdown, therefore prompting officials to strip Opetaia of the IBF title.
That process, however, has proven to be tougher than expected.
According to recent reports, Opetaia is still technically the IBF champion pending further review. The sanctioning body released a statement (via BoxingScene) indicating that
Opetaia may have not had all the facts presented to him before signing on for the Glanton fight, which he won by unanimous decision.
“The status of the IBF cruiserweight title remains in deliberation,” read the statement. “Jai Opetaia made comments during the post-fight press conference that have led the organization’s leadership to question whether he was made completely and fully aware by his advisors of the decisions he needed to make when committing to the bout against Brandon Glanton. The organization intends to look further into this matter.”
Dana White was not too thrilled with how IBF handled the situation and blasted them during the post-fight presser.
“Saying they felt disrespected at the press conference — the belt was in front of him the entire time and he held it in his hand when he did the face-off,” White said via SI. “The Zuffa belt was in the middle because nobody had it. It’s pretty clear what they’re doing and what’s going on. I see lawsuits coming.”
Afterward, it was revealed that IBF had refunded the $73,000 in sanctioning fees to Team Opetaia. As far as Opetaia’s legal team is concerned, The Ring reports that they are still pursuing legal action against IBF for its premature move of stripping their client.
“An attorney representing Jai Opetaia says the boxer has ‘good reason to believe’ the IBF’s decision to withdraw sanctioning of his title fight with Brandon Glanton was a ‘product of coordinated, industry-wide collusion designed to punish him for working with Zuffa Boxing and to deter other athletes from doing the same. Aided and abetted by other sanctioning bodies and promoters, the IBF’s action intentionally inflicted (or threatened to inflict) significant financial and reputational harm on Mr. Opetaia. He is aware of messages between high-level executives essentially admitting to the scheme.‘”
For now, Opetaia is still listed as the the IBF cruiserweight king, which means his dreams of becoming unified champion are alive and well (for the time being). Gilberto Ramirez will defend his WBA (Super) and WBO Cruiserweight titles against David Benavidez, who is moving up in weight to challenge “Zurdo” on May 2, 2026, so Opetaia will be an interested observer come fight night as a matchup against the winner makes the most sense.
Whether or not Dana and Co. can play nice with the WBA and WBO, however, remains to be seen.
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