Opetaia vs Chisora says Turki - but Opetaia to defend against Cinkara

I'd like to see Opetaia at heavyweight. Chisora is about the minimum standard i'd like him to go against, but Chisora is high in the official alphabets rankings right now, so it makes sense as an eliminator.

 

As has been noted here, Ramirez needs to recuperate from his surgery and then he'll likely be forced into mandatories -- and, even if he weren't, it would be highly unlikely he'd take on Opetaia for his first fight back. And, as for Jack, he still has the mandatory rematch with Mikaelian and the date for that still hasn't been announced.

No, these f&*#ing belts won't be unified for years.

 

Chisora at this point with his mass and overhand rights can easily knock out Opetaia, terrible choice for a first heavyweight fight.

 

"Forced" into mandatories lol, he could still unify if he actually wanted to, like Usyk just did with Dubois instead of fighting his WBO mandatory.

But yeah I don't think he wants to fight Opetaia. But we'll see him unify shortly after Opetaia moves up.

I know Opetaia is not one to play the game but he needs to make some noise and callouts. Make it very clear to everyone that the other champs are ducking him and he is moving to heavyweight if they don't respond.

 

I think this can be a tougher fight than it appears. Opetaia took plenty of punishment against a past prime Breidis. Chisora will be able to get in there and score punches and make it rough. I am curious to see how much of Opetaia's power goes up to heavyweight. He has been knocking out a bunch of over-matched guys and maybe it has flattered his standing a little.

 

Of course it would be nice for him to unify at CW before moving up, but if he's going to squander years of his prime waiting on people he might as well move up now.

Chisora is a good fight, as if he can't deal with Chisora he knows he's not going to dominate the best heavies and can come straight back down. But if he does deal with him its a good introduction to the heavyweights; the additional power, strength, size, etc. as you know Chisora is going to bring it.

With regards to the unified CW champions who did move up and do well at heavy, eg. Holyfield, Usyk, etc, most of their money and reputation was made in the HW division.

TLDR; undisputed would be nice, but not if he needs to waste years waiting to get it

 

FWIW I think that Chisora will likely cause him all kinds of trouble. Especially if he doesn't have the power at HW to keep Chisora off him

 

Ill watch it. Its just a damn shame Opetaia has been robbed of a shot at his dreams of unification.

 

Zurdo has Oscar protection

Badou Jack can coast collecting that Gulf Arab money and pretending to be a local

 

Chisora is a big dude, but people can be heavy in different areas and I don't expect Opetaia to look too small next to Chisora, even if he just puts on 20lbs of fat.

Look at Kabayel for example, no one says he doesn't belong at heavyweight, and he is around the same height and I wouldn't be surprised if he has less lean mass than Opetaia.

 

No way Chisora deserves yet another opportunity.

 

Man, I want us to finally have a cruiserweight champion who goes on an actual title defense run. These days a Cruiserweight champion might defend their belt 2 or 3 times, and thats its. Opetaia could defend his IBF belt for a 4th time, which is very rare in the division.
No wonder the division is so dead.


WBA: I think Holyfield still holds the most title defenses at 5.
WBC: Juan Carlos Gómez defended it 10 times. And Krzysztof Włodarczyk later managed 6.
WBO: Johnny Nelson and Marco Huck WBO 13 are tied at 13.
IBF: Vassiliy Jirov 6

In total, only 10 men have defended their cruiserweight belts more than 4 times:
Al Cole IBF (5), Vassiliy Jirov IBF (6), Ralf Rocchigiani WBO (6), Johnny Nelson WBO (13), Marco Huck WBO (13), Oleksandr Usyk WBO (6), Anaclet Wamba WBC (7), Juan Carlos Gómez WBC (10), Krzysztof Włodarczyk WBC (6), Evander Holyfield WBA (5).

What a sad, sad division it is.

 

Chis is a lot bigger and stronger than Jai though.