Do we like them?

Do we like Jai Opetaia?

Our score: 7 out of 10. Clean on harm and decent in the little we found, but the public record on him beyond the ring is thin.

Jai Opetaia is the unbeaten Aussie cruiserweight champion, a Gold Coast-based fighter with a Samoan connection who has been in the top tier of the division for years. He sells himself loudly, calling himself the best cruiserweight on the planet when he announced his latest fight. That's the job description, mate.

The big story of 2026 is a business fight. He left Eddie Hearn's Matchroom for Dana White's Zuffa Boxing, won Zuffa's inaugural cruiserweight belt against Brandon Glanton in March, and the IBF then took his title because it doesn't recognise the Zuffa belt. The Ring reported the IBF pulled its sanction less than 48 hours before the fight.

He hit back in court. In July his lawyers filed suit against the IBF in Nevada, alleging the title was removed as retaliation for the Zuffa move and naming IBF executive director Daryl Peoples. Those are allegations, not proven, and LowKick reported no IBF response.

The split with Hearn got ugly in words too. Opetaia said Hearn's public comments turned negative after he left, and put it bluntly: “Eddie Hearn, he's not my mate.” That's a fighter and a promoter trading barbs over contracts, which is hardly a character stain.

On the harm test, we found nothing. No comments aimed at LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet turned up in the reporting, and his recent fights have been with Zuffa and the usual boxing circuit rather than anyone pushing culture-war material. We can't promise we saw every interview, so call it clean but thinly documented.

There was an older legal scrap with his former promoter Dean Lonergan, who sued him over lost earnings after he ended their contract. Boxing Social reported Opetaia won that case in 2024. A separate report of a Sydney nightclub arrest and a magistrate's rebuke came from one site we couldn't open, so we've left it out.