Cruiserweight Champ Jai Opetaia On P-4-P Rankings: “You Sit On Your F*****g Chairs Saying Who’s Better Than Who”
Jai Opetaia, the reigning IBF and Ring magazine cruiserweight champ, is scary in and out of the ring. With a mean stare that can rekindle thoughts, at least to my mind, of the fearsome and no-nonsense Gerald McClellan, Opetaia, like McClellan before him, will answer what he feel is a dumb question, or a somewhat disrespectful question – or even the unearned right to ask a question – by putting his interviewer firmly in his or her place.
And so it was today, when Opetaia, ahead of this weekend’s fight with Claudio Squeo, shot down a reporter’s question about where he deserves to rank in the pound-for-pound charts we all love to debate so much.
“Who the f**k are you to sit on a chair and rate us?”
Opetaia, his chilling stare on display, said that he “doesn’t give a f**k about what people sat on a chair say” with regards to who the best boxers in the world are. Opetaia is on some P-4-P lists, and deservedly so, but don’t go expecting the Australian warrior to say thank you.
“Of course, I’m happy to be on pound-for-pound lists, at the same time I don’t take too much notice of them,” Opetaia said as filmed by Jai McAllister Boxing & MMA. “I respect that people put me on them, but at the same time, who the fk are you to tell me who’s better than me or to categorise us? We’re the ones in the ring doing all the hard work, and then you sit on your f*g chair, saying, ‘oh, he’s better than him…..’ I don’t give a fk about those pound-for-pound lists.”
Every fight is a stepping stone to greatness
Firmly put by the champ. Opetaia went on to say that every fight he has “is important,” and that a win over the unbeaten Squeo will be “another stepping stone to where we need to go.”
The winning of the unified cruiserweight titles is where Opetaia aims to go, and then maybe he will make a move up to the heavyweight division. The 29 year old southpaw is favoured, and quite heavily, to defeat Italy’s Squeo, 17-0(9), and then go on, as he says himself, to bigger things. Opetaia, 27-0(21) and a world champion since the summer of 2022, is a cool and calm operator in the ring, and he is a no-nonsense, tell it like it is person outside of the squared circle. I pity the fool who has the affront to ask Opetaia the wrong question!
