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IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) retained his title with a fourth-round, two-knockdown victory over David Nyika (10-1, 9 KOs) on Wednesday evening on the Gold Coast Conference Centre, Broadbeach, in Queensland, Australia.
Down Goes Nyika
The struggle was performed at shut quarters by the primary three rounds, with the 6’6″ Nyika neutralizing Opetaia’s offense by wrestling him along with his huge dimension. Within the fourth, Opetaia bought room to land his energy pictures and dropped Nyika twice to get the knockout. The second knockdown left Nyika face-down on the bottom, badly harm.
“I was expecting him to come out boxing. The first round was pretty intense. I wasn’t expecting 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 that’s what happens,” mentioned Jai Opetaia to the media, speaking about his victory over David Nyika tonight in Australia.
Nyika had no alternative however to remain on the within, try to maul Opetaia and stifle his energy with grappling. When Opetaia had room to throw his lengthy energy pictures from the skin, he was dominating Nyika, who didn’t have the offense or protection to take care of that. So, Nyika did the precise factor by conserving the motion shut, not giving Opetaia room to achieve leverage along with his energy pictures.
The place Nyika bought in bother within the fourth spherical was when he gave Opetaia house to throw an uppercut, which harm him, resulting in a number of extra energy pictures that put him down on the canvas for the primary knockdown. Moments later, Opetaia completed Nyika off with a flurry of punches, ending with a brutal left hand to the top that put the challenger down face-first on the canvas. Nyika was badly harm from the knockdown and stayed down for a very long time.
“I respect David. I hope he’s alright. He’s 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 punched on,” mentioned Opetaia. “I don’t suppose he’ll get as a lot credit score as he deserves.
“I Want Zurdo!”
“The fight is done and dusted. I’m looking at what’s next. I’m chasing unification fights now. I don’t worry about the last fight,” mentioned Jai.
Opetaia needs a unification match subsequent towards WBA and WBO cruiserweight champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez. Whether or not that struggle can occur will rely upon the cash. Zurdo and his promoters at Golden Boy will need it to be financially worthwhile earlier than they comply with a dangerous match towards Opetaia.
I’ll say this: Opetaia landed many chopping punches on the within through the struggle, a lot of which hit Nyika on the again of the top. The referee ought to have mentioned one thing to Jai through the struggle to get him to cease with these rabbit pictures as a result of they appeared to take loads of the struggle out of Nyika. Boxing is bizarre. The referees are actually large on stopping low blows however do little or no to warn and penalize for the much more harmful rabbit punches.
