Comments Thread For: For Gilberto Ramirez, Yuniel Dorticos is due and then Jai Opetaia could be next

[Joseph]

I never thought I would say this, but to my mind, Opetai/Zurdo is NOW a 50/50 fight or close enough. Jai has looked susceptible in his last two fights while Zurdo has looked competent or better.

Change my mind.

[MulaKO]

I never thought I would say this, but to my mind, Opetai/Zurdo is NOW a 50/50 fight or close enough. Jai has looked susceptible in his last two fights while Zurdo has looked competent or better.

Change my mind.

I suspect there’s something we are not being told about Jai
He fought good opponents and always looked good doing it
Now a 360 the opposite way
Im thinking maybe injury or something in that vicinity
Maybe a reoccurring injury makes him gun shy or something to do with stamina
Not the same guy

[Joseph]

Not the same guy

Well, didn't Briedis personally balance and rotate his jaw in their first fight? Wonder if that's affected him...

[Mammoth]

Last time I saw Dorticos he got wide UD'd by Breidis. Hopefully he's got enough left to give a decent account of himself.

[MulaKO]

Well, didn't Briedis personally balance and rotate his jaw in their first fight? Wonder if that's affected him...

Something they ain’t telling us

[Malvado]

Gawd that guy has been completely inactive to the point that I legit forgot he existed and somehow was under the impression that Opetaia is the unified WBC-IBF beltholder and the two fighting would've been for undisputed.

His wikipedia has him having fought once in 2018 (loss to Briedis), 2019, 2020, completely skipped 2021, once in 2022, once in 2023 (won the vacant WBC against Makabu), and so far none this year.

Apparently next week (December 7), Ryan Rozicki is going to fight to get a interim title if he beats Yamil Peralta in a rematch. If Noel doesn't oblige of fighting the winner, he be stripped.

Also interesting Ilunga Makabu was aimed by Canelo in 2022 after he beat Plant, but after Ilunga (rightfullty) turned down the 185 catchweight, next year after he got stopped twice by a 39-40 year old Jack Badou and by Noel Mikaelian right after.

Canelo probably knew he was the lowest hanging fruit at the time.

[Elheath]

Apparently next week (December 7), Ryan Rozicki is going to fight to get a interim title if he beats Yamil Peralta in a rematch. If Noel doesn't oblige of fighting the winner, he be stripped.

Also interesting Ilunga Makabu was aimed by Canelo in 2022 after he beat Plant, but after he turned down the 185 catchweight, he got stopped twice by a 39-40 year old Jack Badou and by Noel Mikaelian right after.

He probably he was the lowest hanging fruit at the time.

I don't know much about either of them but if the wikipedia article is somewhat true, Makabu seems like a case like Rollie where he had no business being a beltholder to begin with but lucked out due to controversial "win" and lost convincingly shortly afterwards:

Makabu had a controversial "win" against Cieslak to get the vacant WBC belt, then did a voluntary against Durodola followed by a mandatory defense against Mchunu which he had another controversial "win", then was aiming to fight Canelo which didn't get agreed upon. He was then supposed to fight his next mandatory in Mikaelian on January 2023 but it got canned for an unknown reason which then lead to Makabu fighting on the February 2023 undercard of Jake Paul vs Tommy Fury against Badou Jack which he promptly got TKOed. Then Badou vacated to move up to Bridger, and Makabu and Mikaelian finally fought on November 2023 for the same vacant belt and got knocked out again, and probably retired.

As for Canelo, given that it would've given him a belt in 5 divisions from 154, 160, 168, 175, 190/200* if he could've gotten the catchweight titlefight agreed, so from his standpoint I guess it certainly was worth a try to see if he can weight drain the lowest hanging fruit of cruiser.

[thehop69]

You said their first fight,they've only fought once,are you getting mixed up with Murat Gassiev who beat him by TKO.