Jai Opetaia has outlined his dream of a mega-fight in his home stadium at Gosford after wowing a new audience in London with a ruthless first defence of his world cruiserweight crown.
Leading British promoter Eddie Hearn is not ruling out the prospect of the southpaw star earning his big opportunity, evidently seeing the dollar signs as he declared: “There’s money in Australia”.
Opetaia will leave Britain with his reputation seriously enhanced after his fourth-round demolition job on outclassed English giant Jordan Thompson at Wembley Arena on Saturday to defend his IBF and The Ring titles after a 15-month hiatus.
What the 28-year-old really covets now is a major stadium fight back home on the NSW Central Coast, with his eyes on unifying the cruiserweight division by beating England’s WBO champion Chris Billam-Smith, aka ‘The Gentleman’, who watched from ringside at Wembley.
“Where would I like to fight next? Well, you know it's all about business now. We got Eddie Hearn the big businessman next to us, so we will have a discussion,” Opetaia told BBC Radio.
“I'd love to have a fight in my hometown Gosford Stadium, it's been a dream of mine since I was a kid and I really want that fight to happen. I'd love to have the fight for the WBO belt there.
“I want that WBO belt around my waist, man. It's a fight I really want. I respect Chris Billam-Smith, but there can only be one king of the cruiserweight division - and that's me.”
Promoter Hearn rates Opetaia as being up with the most impressive visitors to English rings in the last few years alongside boxing superstars Artur Beterbiev, Gervonta Davis, and Gennadiy Golovkin.
“He’s a very special fighter. You see a guy who you say 'this is the king of the division' and we saw that,” Hearn said.
“There's money in Australia for big tourism events. We've got Chris Billam-Smith (but) unfortunately he's got to fight Lawrence Okolie (the former champion in a mandatory WBO defence) which is really going to put a damper on his career.
“He should be saying to his promoters, 'Can't I just go and talk to Eddie Hearn and go and make a massive unification fight that everyone wants to see for loads of money?’. But sometimes it's not that easy.”
Opetaia also revealed he had been “reached out” to by Tyson Fury’s camp over the prospect of sparring with the ‘Gypsy King’ before the Briton’s projected world heavyweight unification bout with Oleksandr Usyk.
“That’s a crazy experience - I look forward to doing things like that,” Opetaia, who’s long talked of one day fighting for heavyweight crowns himself, said.
