On Saturday's Zuffa Boxing show in Las Vegas, Zuffa cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia became the first fighter to stop WBC champion Noel Mikaelian. According to Zuffa's website, Opetaia "added another world title to his growing collection" but the WBC has yet to confirm whether it will recognize Opetaia as champion. After the fight, Opetaia faced off respectfully with WBA/WBO champion David Benavidez, and the two  verbally agreed to face each other further down the line.  Dana White, who runs Zuffa Boxing, admitted it’s a fight he’d love to make in the future. “Yeah, great fight,” he said. “[Opetaia] got rocked in the fight, came back and looked great. And then obviously Benavidez being here… I've made no secret about the fact that I love Benavidez, and obviously that's a great fight to make. So we'll see how this whole thing plays out.”

 

White later elaborated on a possible Opetaia vs. Benavidez matchup, as he explained, “I think that we've gotten into a better place with the sanctioning organizations. I think we have. We'll see how that all plays out over the next several months. But obviously, Benavidez is somebody that we're very interested in. Jai is interested. Benavidez is interested. So that's most of the battle, right there. And it gets to a point where, when you have a fight between a guy like Jai Opetaia and Benavidez, the belts… I mean, we all know these are the two baddest dudes in the world in that weight class, belts, no belts, or whatever.” 

 

Zuffa's main event saw Conor Benn suffer a second-round defeat to WBC welterweight champion Ryan Garcia on Saturday. White was asked what might be next for Benn. White said he’d give the Englishman time to rest up and decide when he wants to return before they make any concrete plans for him. “The kid goes home, enjoys some time with his family, relax, enjoy the success that he's had this year, and when he's ready to fight again, he calls us, and we'll put something together” White said. “We'll figure him out. He will fight again, and it's just one of those nights. Ryan Garcia is that good. That's how good Ryan Garcia really is, and he proved it here tonight in spectacular fashion. We've been saying leading up to tonight that if he did it, could he be the face of boxing.”