One of the finest fights that could be made in 2025 would be a cruiserweight unification contest between WBA and WBO titleholder Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and IBF ruler Jai Opetaia.
Opetaia is back in action in Australia on January 8 against David Nyika, while Ramirez is coming off an impressive November win over Chris Billam-Smith, in which he added the WBO title to his WBA belt.
Billam-Smith, now hoping to take the WBC route in 2025, said he believes a Ramirez-Opetaia matchup would be competitive.
“I don’t know,” Billam-Smith said when asked about who might win. “I think it depends on the first few rounds. He’s a very clever fighter, Zurdo. I know he’s much more clever in there than you probably realize at times. But Opetaia is very good, very good technically. He’s got good feet. And I think you need good feet to beat Zurdo. I think fast feet and keeping your shape and stuff like that is important. It’s how he’d beat him – with his feet.”
Between the two titleholders, Ramirez has the only professional loss, and that is to the excellent light heavyweight Dmitry Bivol. Billam-Smith admires Bivol while at the same time believing Opeteia-Ramirez would strategically be a different fight.
“I don’t think Opetaia is the same in terms of the way he does it,” said Billam-Smith. “I think he does switch off sometimes after he punches, Opetaia, in terms of he looks for that big shot, that big back hand. But it’s a 50-50 fight, for sure, I think.
“I'd love to see it. Not often you say that about two southpaws, either. But I’d love to see it.”