Zuffa Boxing 4 – Title Time: Ajagba v Martin Preview and Prediction

Jai Opetaia (1.07) v Brandon Glanton (8.00) (Zuffa Boxing Cruiserweight Championship)

5:00 AM Monday SA time

There will be many in the years and decades to come, but there will forever be only one inaugural Zuffa Boxing champion. Unbeaten Australian superstar Opetaia and American ace Glanton will fight for that honour in a historic headliner scheduled for 12 rounds.

Opetaia’s Ring championship, which recognises him as the best 200-pounder on the planet across the various sanctioning bodies, will also be on the line, as Turki Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and owner of The Ring, is part of Zuffa Boxing’s leadership group.

Formed by TKO, the owners of the UFC and WWE, and entertainment conglomerate Sela, Zuffa Boxing promised to disrupt the sport and run it in its image, and the controversial promotion has already sent shockwaves through the sweet science landscape.

Opetaia, a two-time IBF cruiserweight king with a perfect professional record of 29-0 with 23 knockouts, was the promotion’s first major signing, and White and his super group fired another massive shot by signing Conor Benn, one of the hottest boxers in the sport at the moment, from under the nose of Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn.

After a solid first event, each of the promotion’s subsequent events was better than the last, and this promises to take them to new heights, with Zuffa being the talk of the boxing world following the shock Benn signing and with them set to controversially crown their first champion.

A destroyer from Down Under, 30-year-old Opetaia is coming off a brutal eighth-round knockout of Huseyin Cinkara in December, his fourth consecutive knockout win.

Frustrated with being unable to land a unification fight with the division’s other champions, he opted to sign with Zuffa Boxing instead and is the overwhelming favourite to become their inaugural champion.

Glanton is no slouch. The 34-year-old has a record of 21-3 with 18 knockouts, the last of which came against former WBA light heavyweight champion Marcus Browne in his most recent bout in October.

The sixth-round stoppage was the ideal way to bounce back from his loss to former WBO cruiserweight titleholder Chris Billam-Smith and earned him this, the biggest fight of his life. “Bulletproof” is solid rather than spectacular across the board, so this is a huge step up in competition for him.

Opetaia is a puzzle no one has been able to solve, mainly because he’s a well-rounded southpaw with remarkable movement. One of the most fluent operators in the sport, he glides in and out and changes angles smoothly, making him a tough target and helping him create attacking opportunities.

Add his power, and he’s primed to seize Zuffa Boxing’s inaugural belt in style.

Prediction: Opetaia by knockout.

Best Bet: Opetaia by KO/TKO/DQ (check markets).