IBF cruiserweight champion Jay Opetaia expects challenger David Niika to be stubborn as he will not want to get hit when they meet in their 12-round headliner this Wednesday, January 8, at the Gold Coast Convention Centre, Broadbeach, Australia. The event will be shown live on DAZN.
Opetaia (26-0, 20 KOs) has sparred with undefeated IBF No. 10 Niika (10-0, 9 KOs), and feels he won’t want to feel his power. He thinks he will hurt Niik if he gets involved with anything.
Combat Freeze
Opetaia is believed to have been looking past Niik towards a potential fight against unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, which promoter Eddie Hearn has been talking about. He is also interested in a unification fight with WBA and WBO heavyweight champion Gilbert ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez.
Niika saw what Mairis Briedis did a southpaw Opetaia in their rematch last year and knows he broke under pressure. He can’t stand it when he starts punishing him, so he sits on his bike and does everything to avoid being hit.
Opetaja’s entire mystique disappeared in the second half of his rematch with the 39-year-old Briedis on May 18. He could not withstand the pressure that the former champion was putting on him.
I wonder what Turki Al Shik was thinking when he watched Opetaya. It looked like a classic example of a soldier in the combat freeze. Opetaya looked closed, frozen and mentally paralyzed by the pressure Briedis was putting on him. Turki must have seen what I saw. The repetition looked like a complete mess. At the end of that fight, he looked broken.
“I am satisfied with all the support. They support me because I keep winning. I keep performing,” Jay Opetaia told Jay McAllister YouTube channel, talking about Turki Al-Shiek who supports him. “The pressure is on, let’s do it.” Like I said, ‘Do or die.’
“I don’t know.” I’m curious to see how he will come out, how aggressive he is,” Opetaja said when asked how his fight with Niika will play out. “I know he doesn’t want to get hit, because I know if I fucking hit him, he’s going to get hurt.” It will be a chess match. Let’s see how it goes.”
Exploiting weaknesses
Opetaia, 29, now has support, but it could all be over if Niika takes him to Neptune-like Planet 9 in the outer reaches of the solar system with some of the big shots he’s about to land on.
“I never aim lower than the top, and Jai is the man right now,” Niika said Jay McAllister. “Towards the end of the time I was sparring with him, I outmatched him.” We have made an executive decision to stop working with him because we have received all the information we need.
It sounds like Niika figured Opetaia towards the end of their matches and probably discovered the key to beating him. It’s pretty obvious. He doesn’t handle pressure well, and his resume is pretty much devoid of quality opposition. He only fought one good guy, Briedis, and that at the end of his career. A younger version of Briedis would be a nightmare for Opetaja.
“I think he’s trying to blow everything out of the water, and he’s done a pretty good job of that.” I’ve seen the guys he’s fought, and none of them had any solid or solid game plans,” Niika said of the many soft guys Opetaia has beaten.
Quality Of Foes
It was pretty easy for Opetai to score knockouts because he didn’t fight quality opponents during his career, except for two fights against Briedis.
Opetaja’s best opponents:
– Mairis Briedis
– Jack Massey
– Ellis Zoro
– Jordan Thompson
– Mark Flanagan
They are not great fighters. The only one you could say was good was Briedis, but he’s past his prime at 39. Any fighter can look good when feasting on the type of opposition that Opetaia has fought his entire 10-year pro career.
