IBF heavyweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) retained his title with a fourth-round two-knockout victory over David Nyika (10-1, 9 KOs) on Wednesday night at the Gold Coast Convention Centre, Broadbeach, Queensland. Australia.
Down goes the world
The fight was fought at point-blank range for the first three rounds, with the 6’6″ Niika neutralizing Opetaia’s offense by wrestling with his sheer size. In the fourth, Opetaia got space for power shots and dropped Niik twice to get the knockout. The second knockdown left Niik face down on the ground, badly injured.
“I expected him to come out to the pits.” The first round was quite intense. I didn’t expect him to come out so aggressively, and then after the first round I thought, ‘Here we go. He’s going to start boxing.’ He just kept coming forward, and it happens,” Jay Opetaia told mediatalking about beating David Najik tonight in Australia.
Niika had no choice but to stay inside, try to break Opetaia and stifle his power with a grapple. When Opetaia had space for his long side kicks, he dominated Niika, who didn’t have the offense or defense to deal with it. So Niika did the right thing by keeping the action close, not giving Opetaia room to gain leverage with his power shots.
In the fourth round, Niika ran into trouble when he gave Opetaja room to throw an uppercut, which hurt him, leading to a few more power shots that sent him down to the canvas for the first knockdown. Moments later, Opetaia finished off Niik with a flurry of punches, ending with a brutal left hand to the head that sent the challenger face down to the canvas. Niika was badly injured from the knockdown and stayed down for a long time.
“I respect David. I hope he is well. He is a great fighter. I don’t think people will give him the credit he deserves because of the way we just fought. We literally just attacked,” Opetaja said. “I don’t think he’s going to get as much credit as he deserves.”
“I want Zurdo!”
“The fight is over and done with.” I’m looking at what’s next. I am now chasing unification battles. “I don’t worry about the last fight,” Jai said.
Opetaia wants his next unification match against WBA and WBO Cruiserweight Champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez. Whether that fight will happen will depend on the money. Zurdo and his promoters in Golden Boy will want to make it financially viable before agreeing to a risky match against Opetaia.
I will say this: Opetaia landed a lot of inside chops during the fight, many of which hit Niik in the back of the head. The ref should have said something to Jai during the fight to get him to stop those rabbit punches because they seemed to take a lot of the fight out of Niik. Boxing is weird. Referees are really big on stopping low kicks, but do very little to warn and penalize the far more dangerous rabbit kicks.
