Jai Opetaia has officially signed a promotional deal with Zuffa Boxing, Dana White’s new boxing venture, but he’s still talking about the same thing he’s talked about for years: chasing the undisputed cruiserweight title. The Australian–based IBF champion joined Zuffa in January 2026, stepping in as one of the first major names in a league that wants to build its own title system alongside the traditional alphabet belts. Even as Zuffa leans on him to help launch the brand, Opetaia has said he doesn’t see this as a replacement for the established road to undisputed status.
Jai Opetaia Signs Talks Zuffa Boxing
Zuffa Boxing announced Opetaia’s signing as a headline move, bringing in a reigning world champion just months after White left the UFC and turned his focus to boxing. The promotion is marketing its cruiserweight title as a new belt at 200 pounds, with Opetaia scheduled to fight Brandon Glanton for the inaugural Zuffa Boxing cruiserweight championship on March 8 in Las Vegas. That fight is meant to feel like a real title step, not a one‑off show, serving both as a showcase for the league and as a checkpoint in Opetaia’s next chapter.
“Undisputed. Don’t take your mind off undisputed. We’re chasing unification fights. If we don’t get one by the end of the year, I’ll be very f***ing disappointed. Undisputed. When you think of me, you think, ‘Bro, he wants to be undisputed.’ That’s it. I’m not worried about anyone else. I don’t chase names. I don’t even care if it was Zurdo or if it was Benavidez or if it was back when it was Billam-Smith. I actually respect these dudes. I think they’re great fighters. I think they’re great world champions.”
Source: RG.org
Heading into the Zuffa era, Opetaia already holds the IBF cruiserweight belt and the Ring magazine lineal title, giving him a strong standing in the division. Before signing with Zuffa he had been open about wanting to unify the division by adding the WBA, WBC, and WBO belts, and that storyline hasn’t disappeared with the new deal. He’s mentioned names like WBC titleholder Noel Mikalian and former WBA/WBO champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez as potential opponents in the mix as he plots out the bigger picture.
Rather than treating Zuffa as just another promotion, Opetaia has talked about the Zuffa Boxing title as something that could eventually sit alongside the traditional belts in fan and media conversations. In interviews he’s described the league’s launch as a new chapter in boxing, suggesting that the Zuffa belt could become one of the hoops a fighter has to clear to be seen as truly undisputed at cruiserweight. That’s a bold claim for a brand‑new belt, but it carries more weight because it’s coming from a reigning champion who has never lost and is still in his early prime.
He’s not waiting for a perfectly lined‑up path to undisputed status; instead he’s using the Zuffa deal as a way to stay visible, marketable, and active while he keeps pushing for the big unification matchups he’s long targeted. How sustainable that model is will depend on how Zuffa handles fighters who want to mix its belt with other organizations’ titles, a question that will likely be answered by Opetaia’s own choices after the Glanton bout.
