For Eddie Hearn, the year opened with an unexpected punch. One of his prized fighters, one of the biggest names in boxing in the Australian and New Zealand region, Jai Opetaia, joined rival Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing. The 30-year-old Sydney native, who holds the IBF and Ring belts at 200 pounds, had a co-promotional deal with Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing. Despite holding the titles, he’s spent most of his career out of the spotlight. Fights against big names eluded him, and his dreams of unifying the division still hang in the air.

That’s where Eddie Hearn admits he made a mistake. Looking back at the loss of the world champion, Hearn admitted just days before Dana White‘s Zuffa Boxing’s first event under the Paramount deal, that he feels he let down Opetaia.

Eddie Hearn admits he dropped the ball on Jai Opetaia

The English promoter’s honest admissions emerged during an interview with Boxing Social. “I had nothing for Jai; we hadn’t promoted a show for Jai for over a year, with Matchroom leading it,” he said. “I can’t deliver him the (unification); I have failed in that respect.”

In another interview with iFL TV, he revealed that his relationship with Opetaia had already been on the wane for the past six months. “We haven’t promoted Jai ourselves in over two years, since the Jordan Thompson fight. Everything that we’ve done around Jai is with Mick Francis and Tasman Fighters. The last three fights, which have all been in Australia, we haven’t been the promoter of,” he said.

He explained that in Opetaia’s last three Australian fights, Matchroom had barely played any role. While Turki Alalshikh helped during the fight against David Nyika, they barely played a role in the title defense against Claudio Squeo.

The problems escalated with the most recent fight, the December 6 bout against Huseyin Cinkara, since DAZN refused to pick it up. Hearn admitted that during this period, Matchroom hadn’t actively promoted Opetaia’s career much.

While he clarified that the lack of these fights wasn’t Opetaia’s fault, he also implied it wasn’t entirely Matchroom’s fault either, because Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez either wasn’t available or wasn’t interested.

Jai Opetaia moves on, leaving Hearn behind

Hearn took Opetaia under the Matchroom banner in 2023. The deal involved sharing the cruiserweight champion’s promotional interests with his team, the Tasman Fighters. Opetaia had become a champion just 12 months earlier, but thereafter followed a series of title defenses that continued up to the most recent bout against Huseyin Cinkara.

During that period, the only truly notable opponent Opetaia faced was former three-time champion Mairis Briedis. Understanding Opetaia’s ambitions sooner might have kept Hearn’s team from being left behind.

Opetaia had already called out unified champion Zurdo Ramirez, but nothing came of it. A fight between the two cruiserweight champions could have been possible, given that Opetaia and Zurdo, promoted by Golden Boy, both fight on DAZN.

Hearn and his team could only watch as Zurdo opted for a bigger payday against David Benavidez, who moved up a division for the high-profile all-Mexican clash.

Hearn’s acknowledgments were followed by a sharp critique of Dana White. Like many, he questioned how the UFC head’s stance on not working with other sanctioning bodies – as Zuffa plans to introduce UFC-style belts – fits with Opetaia’s dreams of unifying the title.

White has already signaled a possible shift in stance. Expressing openness to Opetaia’s unification plans, he said, “We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that these guys can do what they wanted to do.” Recent clips showing Opetaia in a face-off with WBC cruiserweight titleholder Noel Mikaelyan also point in that direction.