Jai Opetaia looked and sounded angry during his face to face with challenger David Nyika on Saturday to discuss their January 8 fight. From the beginning, Opetaia looked like he was in a bad mood as if he had gotten out of the wrong side of the bed in the morning.
His irritable mood worsens when Nyika doesn’t flinch, shows no fear and acts in the servile way he seems to expect from him.
Opetaia’s anger exposed
Opetaia wanted him to bow down and act submissive, and he wasn’t going to do it. Jai wanted to be in control and dominate Nyika during their meeting.
It was a sign of how insecure Opetaia is. He is clearly used to intimidating his opponents, using them to be submitted so that he can dominate them the moment they enter the ring.
IBF cruiserweight champion Opetaia (26-0, 20 KOs) got worked up when he said Nyika (10-0, 9 KOs) wanted to have a “gunfight” with him on Wednesday night.
Opetaia, 29, said he wants a 12-round “war” with the 6’6″ Nyika and believes he will knock him out. The two fighters meet at the Gold Coast Convention Centre, Broadbeach, Australia The event will be broadcast live on DAZN.
“Sparring is sparring. I’m ready for a fight on April 10. Don’t worry about sparring. It’s a completely different ball game,” Jai Opetaia told DAZN Boxing to David Nyika.
“I feel like I’ve done everything I needed to do. I feel like I know Jai pretty well. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. I’ve had my eyes on Jai for a long time,” said Nyika.
“I know I can throw him. I know I can hurt,” said Opetaia. “These little gloves are a dangerous game. You want to have a shootout. Let’s have a meeting. I know it won’t be a clash. He goes boxing. He doesn’t want to be hit. It will be a chess match.
“So, let’s go here, let’s play. 12 rounds of war. I’m ready for it. You say you’re ready for me. I’m ready for anyone. I don’t have my goals on anyone. I just train. I focus on myself ; there’s no one out there that I can imagine wanting to beat him,” said Opetaia.
Will Obadiah freeze again?
Jai talks big, but he wasn’t in any part of the war in his rematch against Mairis Briedis on May 18. Opetaia looked like someone with a bad case of combat stress. He broke down under constant bombardment from the Latvian fighter and froze in the last six rounds.
Briedis dominated the second half of the fight, and did enough to deserve a draw. The judges gave it to Opetaia, but it should have been a tie. That is why it is strange that Opetaia talks about wanting to make a “war” with Nyika; it is not good under these conditions. Where Opetaia is good is when his opponents don’t throw, and he does all the attacking. When it’s just him shooting, it’s fine.
“I fight every day. Hurting, sacrificing every day, I’m ready for that,” said Opetaia.
“Looks like you haven’t done your homework,” Nyika said when asked what goes through his mind when he hears Opetaia talking about him, knowing he’s going to kick him out. “It doesn’t seem like perfect practice makes perfect.
“I practiced, I researched, and I gathered my intelligence. This is not the kind of sport where you can go with a game plan. I have a game plan from A to Z,” Nyika said.
When Nyika was saying all these things, Opetaia looked like he was in a fit of anger, very upset because he had someone not bowing down to him and scraping the ground like a foot servant like the many fighters. of second rank that he had built his record. with
