IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) retained his title with a fourth-round, two-fight win over David Nyika (10-1, 9 KOs) on Wednesday night at the Gold Coast Convention Center , Broadbeach, in Queensland, Australia.
Down Goes the World
The fight was closely fought through the first three rounds, with the 6’6″ Nyika neutralizing Opetaia’s offense by fighting with his massive size. In the fourth, Opetaia had room to land his power shots and dropped Nyika twice to get the knockout. The second fall left Nyika face down, badly injured.
“I expected him to come out boxing. The first round was pretty intense. I didn’t expect him to come out so aggressive, and then after the first round, I thought, ‘Here we go.’ He has to start boxing. He kept moving forward, and that’s what happens,” Jai Opetaia said mediatalking about his win over David Nyika tonight in Australia.
Nyika had no choice but to stay inside, try to maul Opetaia and choke his power with grappling. When Opetaia had space to throw his long power shots from the outside, he dominated Nyika, who didn’t have the offense or defense to deal with it. So, Nyika did the right thing by keeping the action close, giving Opetaia no room to gain leverage with his power shots.
Where Nyika ran into trouble in the fourth round was when he gave Opetaia room to throw an uppercut, which hurt him, leading to several more power shots that put him on the canvas for the first knockdown. Moments later, Opetaia finished off Nyika with a flurry of punches, ending with a brutal left hand to the head that put the challenger face first on the canvas. Nyika was badly hurt by the encounter and stopped for a long time.
“I respect David. I hope he’s OK. It’s a great fight. I don’t think people will give him the credit he deserves because of the way we fought. We literally just punched,” said Opetaia. “I don’t think he will get the credit he deserves.
“I want Lefty!”
“The fight is done and dusted. I’m looking at what’s next. I’m chasing unification fights now. I’m not worried about the last fight,” said Jai.
Opetaia wants a unification match next against WBA and WBO cruiserweight champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez. Whether this fight can happen will depend on the money. Zurdo and his promoters at Golden Boy want him to be financially worth it before accepting a risky match against Opetaia.
I will say this: Opetaia landed a lot of chopping punches inside during the fight, many of which hit Nyika in the back of the head. The referee should have said something to Jai during the fight to make him stop with those rabbit punches because they seemed to take a lot of the fight out of Nyika. Boxing is weird. Referees are really great at stopping low blows, but they do very little to warn and penalize for the much more dangerous rabbit punches.
