Saudi Arabia Eyes Bivol vs. Beterbiev Winner for Cruiserweight Clash with Opetaia

Image: Saudi Arabia Eyes Bivol vs. Beterbiev Winner for Cruiserweight Clash with Opetaia
By Dan Ambrose - 01/17/2024 - Comments

His Excellency Turki Alalshikh says he wants the winner of the light heavyweight undisputed championship fight between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol to move up to face former cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia in a huge match-up.

Opetaia is too big to move down to 175 to challenge the Beterbiev-Bivol winner for the undisputed, so they’ll have to move up to 200 to face him. The weight difference won’t affect Beterbiev because he fought at that weight in the Olympics and dominated.

It’s an excellent idea to give Opetaia (24-0, 19 KOs) a worthy big-name opponent to face at cruiserweight, as this division is completely barren and lifeless regarding names. It might as well be planet Neptune, and Opetaia needs a popular foe, like Beterbiev or Bivol, to make it interesting.

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This won’t be a problem for Beterbiev, who is already big for the light heavyweight division and fought at heavyweight in the 2012 Olympics, where he arguably beat Oleksandr Usyk but found himself on the receiving end of a controversial decision.

“The result of Beterbiev-Bivol play against [cruiserweight] Opetaia, and the fans want to see this fight,” said His Excellency Turki Alalshikh to DAZN Boxing. “I want fighters. Why is it not Saudi Arabia? The map is changing.”

Hopefully, His Excellency Turki Alalshikh isn’t too keen on Opetaia because Beterbiev is a better fighter than him and has the amateur background to take this guy apart.

Opetaia struggled badly to defeat 39-year-old Mairis Briedis, his toughest career foe, and he took a lot of shots from that guy, who isn’t in the same league talent-wise as Beterbiev.

Beterbiev will beat the brakes off Opetaia and expose him as another single-punch, Canelo Alvarez type of fighter. Opetakia is a good fighter, but he has zero indie games, and he gets by with landing single left hands from the outside.

Opetaia’s best chance of beating the winner of the Beterbiev-Bivol fight is if Bivol (22-0, 11 KOs) comes out victorious because he can’t punch, and he’s timid when facing guys with power.

That would be a simple fight or Opetaia to bomb Bivol from the outside, and look to chop him up. Bivol should be fighting at super middleweight, not light heavyweight, because he doesn’t have the power to compete with Beterbiev. He’ll be totally overmatched against Opetaia.