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Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing, but more on that later. Briedis and Glanton, who was rated No. 10 prior to March 8, are the only Ring-ranked fighters Opetaia has faced since bursting onto the scene four years ago. According to Michael Francis, head of Tasman Fighters, which represents Opetaia, they have contacted the management of seven out The Ring’s top 10 cruiserweights over the past three years, and all swerved or declined an immediate match for various reasons. Here’s my question to those hoping to see Opetaia without any major belts: Do you really give a damn about The Ring’s rankings and championship rules? I have to ask because rule No. 5 has never been brought up by the fans or media prior to Opetaia (and yes, other Ring champs – including Guillermo Rigondeaux, Adonis Stevenson and Andre Ward – have been in violation of it in years past). During my eight-year tenure as Editor-In-Chief, the boxing public has only campaigned for two reigning Ring champs to be stripped – Tyson Fury, toward the end of his 2½-year mental health hiatus, and Canelo Alvarez, immediately after he popped hot for clenbuterol. Opetaia hasn’t disappeared from the sport or tested positive for a banned substance, yet he’s catching the same caliber of heat those two did. I don’t think this is about The Ring. I think it’s about Opetaia signing with Zuffa Boxing in January. Now that the UFC’s abrasive bossman is in the boxing business with plans to ignore the sanctioning bodies in lieu of his own rankings and Zuffa belt – now you know why the IBF stripped Opetaia – he’s seen as a serious threat by the sport’s power brokers as well as wannabes who like to take sides. Opetaia is merely guilty by association. But they aren’t wrong about Opetaia being in violation of our rules. So, the Ring Ratings Panel addressed the issue on March 23. Managing editor Tom Gray got the discussion started:
As this issue went to press, Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev hadn’t fought since their rematch, which took place last February. Neither had Zhilei Zhang, who last fought on the undercard of their rematch. Injuries, surgeries, and scheduled bouts falling out were brought up by panelists who voted to keep the elite light heavyweights in the pound-for- pound and divisional rankings. Zhang also got extra time in the heavyweight top 10 due to his difficulty landing quality opponents. However, when the panel grants added time due to circumstances, it’s not indefinite. A time limit is always set for their management to get a bout officially scheduled. If that doesn’t happen by the deadline, they’re dropped, which is what happened to Zhang in late March and to Beterbiev in late April. However, Bivol had a fight scheduled for May 30 and remains in the rankings. “I may not agree with each decision, but we arrived there democratically, and I can live with that,” I continued. Panelist Anson Wainwright sympathized with Opetaia’s plight but voted to enforce the rule. “It’s a tough one, because Opetaia, as Doug says, wants the smoke and appears more than willing to face any cruiserweight, but they don’t all appear so willing. I hate to see Opetaia penalized and lose the title, but these are the rules we’ve followed previously, so I’ll say to remove Opetaia as Ring champion.” I replied to Wainwright: “I will reiterate that we have a panel to discuss said rules. We don’t always follow them to a ‘T,’ as I’ve pointed out with the exceptions we’ve given to fighters who were inactive for more than 12 months. We’ve debated the championship policy as well, sometimes bucking the rule of No. 1 vs. No. 2 or No. 3 [for a vacant Ring championship], as we did when we put the vacant junior bantamweight belt on the line for Srisaket Sor Rungvisai-Juan Francisco Estrada I (at a time when they were the Nos. 2 and 3 contenders – Naoya Inoue was No. 1, but we knew he was
“Over the past several weeks/months, fans have been asking why Jai Opetaia has been allowed to retain his Ring championship despite being over the two-year threshold to face a top-five Ring Magazine rated contender. This has come again because the IBF has stripped him. “Can everyone please give their views on this and be aware that your comments might be used in a ratings update regardless of what way it goes.” First to respond was panelist Adam Abramowitz, who didn’t see the logic in singling Opetaia out: “My thought is we only strip Jai if we do a full accounting of all fighters in our rankings to see who else this might apply to. If we agree to this and do that undertaking, then I’m fine with removing people due to that rule. But I also don’t want to just take out Opetaia because we got lobbied to do so. The standard must be evenly applied.” I agreed with Abramowitz and reminded the panel that we seldom enforce our rules without looking into the conditions of the violations: “We have rules, but we also have a Ratings Panel for a reason, and that reason is to discuss and debate the circumstances that accompany every situation that impacts the rankings.” I brought up recent examples of the panel granting leeway to boxers who were inactive for more than a year. Our rule on inactivity states that a boxer exits the rankings if he or she has been out of the ring for 12 months without having a fight scheduled. Last October, Bakhram Murtazaliev had reached 12 months of inactivity. The IBF 154-pound titleholder had a defense against Josh Kelly in the works but not officially scheduled. Panelists brought up the hand injury he sustained during his third-round stoppage of Tim Tszyu in October 2024 as well as his management’s difficulty in finding challengers. The majority voted to allow him to remain in the junior middleweight rankings until a deal was reached for his January 31 defense against Kelly.
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