{"id":1016702,"date":"2026-06-10T03:32:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1016702\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T03:32:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T03:32:16","slug":"advisor-says-wbc-cruiserweight-champ-noel-mikaelian-intends-to-face-david-benavidez-not-jai-opetaia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1016702\/","title":{"rendered":"Advisor says WBC cruiserweight champ Noel Mikaelian intends to face David Benavidez, not Jai Opetaia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Anthony Girges, advisor for WBC cruiserweight champion Noel Mikaelian, told BoxingScene Tuesday that Mikaelian prefers to face\u00a0WBO cruiserweight champ David Benavidez and defend his title, rather than face Australia&#8217;s unbeaten Jai Opetaia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">On May 29, Mikaelian, 28-3 (12 KOs), was reported to be in advanced negotiations to meet Zuffa Boxing cruiserweight champion Opetaia, however, hours after it was reported by BoxingScene, the WBC ordered Mikaelian to meet Benavidez, 32-0 (26 KOs), instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Speaking to BoxingScene, Girges said, \u201cNoel has no intention of walking away from the belt. We are waiting for our offers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Girges said he was under the assumption he would immediately hear from Benavidez&#8217;s promoter Sampson Lewkowicz , however, since the order was made, he has yet to hear from any of Benavidez\u2019s reps, WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman, or Mikaelian\u2019s own promoter, Don King.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cWe&#8217;ve heard from nobody,\u201d Girges said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When contacted by BoxingScene, Lewkowicz reaffirmed the fight will happen. \u201cIt&#8217;s not proper for me to contact the manager first,\u201d he said. \u201cI will be contacting Don King by tomorrow and presenting him an offer for the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Girges, advisor for WBC cruiserweight champion Noel Mikaelian, told BoxingScene Tuesday that Mikaelian prefers to face\u00a0WBO cruiserweight&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":993434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,19520,70033,211049,79,16,15],"class_list":["post-1016702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-david-benavidez","tag-jai-opetaia","tag-noel-mikaelian","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116723708456661334","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/993434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}