Handshakes Aren't Contracts
A Sunday morning at the chair. Opetaia and Benavidez shook on it, an Aussie matchmaker backed the other bloke, and the Kings had the Hawks at home.
A Sunday morning at the chair. Opetaia and Benavidez shook on it, an Aussie matchmaker backed the other bloke, and the Kings had the Hawks at home.
What happened (added 1 Oct 2026)
Sam Goodman beat Ryosuke Nishida in Tokyo by unanimous decision to win the interim IBF super-bantam title. On the same card, Takuma Inoue kept his WBC bantamweight belt, beating Tenshin Nasukawa on points even after Nasukawa put him down. The Kings beat the Hawks 121 to 100 at Afterpay that night. Opetaia v Benavidez is still a handshake, with no signed deal announced as of 1 Oct.
Sunday, 9am. The clippers are warm, the coffee's worse than usual, and the first bloke in the door has already announced that Jai Opetaia versus David Benavidez is "done." Done. Like he was in the room when the ink dried.
Sit down, mate. There's no ink.
There's a handshake. Cinco de Mayo 2027, Las Vegas, both sides nodding at the idea of it. That's real. It's also eight months away, and Benavidez has Michal Cieslak in December. In boxing, eight months is long enough for a hand injury, a promoter's mood swing, a sanctioning body inventing a mandatory, or somebody's cousin getting into the management business. Jai said it himself. Waiting that long doesn't make sense, and he wants another fight before May. That's not a man sitting by the phone. That's a man who knows how this sport works.
Dana White's Zuffa is circling, which makes the chair split right down the middle. Half the shop says the money makes it happen. The other half has been here before and remembers how many "done deals" ended up as a highlight package of two guys staring at each other at a press conference. Both halves are right, and that's what makes it fun. The fight is real enough to argue about and soft enough to fall over. Treat it like a rumour you believe, not a ticket you've bought.
Now here's the one that got the whole shop leaning in. Tonight in Tokyo, Sam Goodman fights Ryosuke Nishida for the interim IBF super-bantam title. Aussie in a world title fight, big night, flags out. And Mike Altamura, an Aussie matchmaker who has worked with Nishida for years, is openly backing Nishida.
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Read that again. An Aussie, backing the other bloke.
Say what you want about loyalty, but that's a man with a strong opinion and zero instinct for a quiet life. The lady waiting for a skin fade reckons it's a mind game. The young fella on his phone reckons it's a breakup. The old head in the corner, who has seen three decades of fight weeks, just says "wait till the bell." Goodman's version is almost sweet. He says he and Nishida can be friends again after the fight. That's either the calmest thing anyone's said all week or the scariest, depending on how you read his face.
Same card, Takuma Inoue versus Tenshin Nasukawa II for the WBC bantamweight belt. Nasukawa's winning the popularity poll, 52 to 48, and he's brushing that off as a popularity contest, which it is. Takuma says he wants to shut him out. Polls don't throw jabs. Tonight we find out whose rematch plan survives the first round.
And while we're on handshakes that aren't contracts, Tim Tszyu and Erislandy Lara were "near final" earlier this month, with Jermell Charlo waiting as the backup. No date, no venue, no signature. Near final is boxing's favourite phrase because it means nothing and sounds like everything.
Overnight in London, Johnny Fisher, the Romford Bull, headlined Zuffa Boxing 11 against Belgium's Michael Pirotton. The bookies had Fisher as a monster favourite. Pirotton told everyone Fisher can't knock him out. That's a sentence men have said before plenty of heavyweight fights, and sometimes they're even right.
Right. Towel off the boxing. Let's talk basketball, because tonight matters more to this shop than anything in Tokyo.
The Kings are 1 and 0. They opened the title defence by putting 111 on Cairns, winning by 21, with Kendric Davis on 26, Xavier Cooks on 18 and six blokes in double figures. Six. That's not a star carrying a team. That's a team that knows where the ball goes.
But the chair doesn't do victory laps after one round. Keli Leaupepe is out for the whole season with an ACL, and that's a real hole. Goorjian already said the late arrivals of Davis and Torrey Craig made prep messy. Both played, both looked fine, but "looked fine against Cairns" isn't a trophy.
Tonight is the Freeway Series, Illawarra at Afterpay, 6pm. We swept them 3 and 0 last season, and the Hawks have had a whole off-season to be annoyed about it. Rivalry games don't care about ladders. They care about who wants the next ten minutes more. The question isn't whether the Kings are better on paper. It's whether they can keep owning this rivalry while missing a big body and still finding their rhythm. If the ball keeps moving like it did in round one, the Hawks get a long night. If it sticks in one man's hands, Illawarra's been waiting a year for exactly that.
Quick trip overseas. Ben Simmons is back in the NBA on a one-year deal with Sacramento, US$3.5 million. Meanwhile our own Kendric Davis, last season's Championship Series MVP, still says he's chasing his NBA shot, with no deal stamped. Two Aussie-adjacent basketball stories, same week, same energy. Both are about proving someone wrong. One guy has to prove he still belongs. The other has to prove he belongs at all. I know which story I'd rather be in.
And the Bulls. New coach in Tiago Splitter, new faces in Nic Claxton and Norman Powell, and the number four pick Caleb Wilson. Media day is tomorrow, camps open Tuesday, preseason starts against Phoenix on 7 October, and the season opens in Toronto on the 21st. Is it a contender? Nobody serious is saying that out loud yet. Is it interesting? Finally, yes. For a Bulls fan, interesting is a big step up from the last few seasons.
Somebody always drags the GOAT chat in at this point, and today it was Blake Griffin's fault. He picked Jordan on the 17th, and Ray Allen did too this month. The shop nodded. We'll save that fight for tip-off, when it deserves the full chair.
So here's where we land this Sunday. In boxing, the loudest stories are all promises. A handshake in Vegas, a "near final" in Tszyu's camp, an Aussie matchmaker picking against an Aussie fighter, and a poll that won't throw a punch. In basketball, the story is simpler. Sydney has to go out tonight and do it again.
Promises are for press conferences. Tonight in Tokyo, and tonight at Afterpay, somebody actually has to deliver.
Correction, 4 October 2026: An earlier version of this column called Mike Altamura Sam Goodman's manager. He is an Australian matchmaker who works with Ryosuke Nishida. Goodman's manager is Peter Mitrevski.
Rico Holt · ricoholt.com
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