IBF World Title Defence Set For January 8, 2025

By Daniel Mukenya

Jai Opetaia will be back in the ring in just less than three after his last fight. He will have face Huseyin Cinkara, his mandatory challenger to defend his IBF world title.

The fight will take place at the Gold Coast Convention Centre in Queensland, Australia.

Opetaia, 26-0 (20 KOs), was in the ring on October 12 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he was making a voluntary defence of his title against Jack Massey (22-3, 12 KOs) and managed to score a sixth-round stoppage. It was his third time to appear at the Kingdom Arena.

This will be his first time performing in front of his home crowd. He lives in the nearby city of Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. He won his first world title and the lineal championship there in his first fight with Mairis Briedis (28-3, 20KOs) in July 2022.

He made one defence of the IBF belt and then vacated it in order to face Ellis Zorro (17-2, 7 KOs) in December 2023. He later reclaimed it when he came up against Briedis this May, the title was vacant, and on the line, and managed to be victorious by unanimous decision.

This time he is opting to hold on to the title since a unification bout is on the horizon. His top challenger for the throne is someone who has already unified, Gilberto Ramirez aka Zurdo, who has now both the WBA and WBO belts following his clear unanimous decision over Chris Billam-Smith.

Cinkara became the IBF’s mandatory challenger after winning an eliminator in April where he knocked out Armend Xhoxhaj in just four minutes to move to 22-0, (18 KOs) in the process.

Since Opataia had requested an exception from the IBF to be allowed to defend the IBF title against Massey. It was approved but under multiple conditions, they included that it should take place before October 12, the winner must defend it by January 20, 2025, and that the IBF would not grant any more exceptions for defending against the cruiserweight mandatory challenger.