14. Jai Opetaia (30-0, 23 KOs)
Jai Opetaia was born on June 30th 1995 in Sydney, Australia. His family has a boxing background as Jai is a fourth generation boxer on his father’s side and a third on his mother’s side. Jai had aspirations of being a boxer at 12 years old, and he competed in the junior world championships in 2011 where he won a gold medal. In 2012, he won a bronze medal in the AIBA Youth World Championships and months later he represented Australia in the Olympic Games.
Opetaia started his professional career on August 1st 2015 against Isileli Fa, winning by unanimous decision. He went on to have two more fights in the year before fighting five times in 2016, which included a rematch with Fa in December. In 2017, Opetaia won regional titles in the cruiserweight division with wins over Daniel Ammann and Frankie Lopez. In the following year he won three bouts by knockout, which was part of a knockout streak that started in 2016.
On July 27th 2019, Opetaia became the WBO Global champion at cruiserweight by defeating Nikolas Charalampous then won an IBF regional title with a stoppage win over Mark Flanagan. After getting two more victories in 2020 and 2021, Opetaia got his first shot at a world title on July 2nd 2022 against IBF champion Mairis Briedis. Despite dealing with a broken jaw during the fight, Opetaia won by unanimous decision to capture the IBF crusierweight championship.
In 2023 Opetaia defended the IBF title against Jordan Thompson and won by knockout, then fought Ellis Zorro three months later while vacating the title. Opetaia won by knockout, and in his next bout he had a rematch with Mairis Breidis in 2024 with the IBF title on the line. Opetaia got the win by decision and went on to get four knockout wins in a row between October 2024 to December 2025.
In 2026, Opetaia defeated Brandon Glanton by decision and is recognized as the top fighter in the cruiserweight division. There have been rumors that he could have a fight with unified champion David Benavidez…we shall see if that comes to fruition.
