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IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) says he wants a unification fight against WBA/WBO champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez following his fourth-round beating of challenger David Nyika (10-1, 9 KOs) on Wednesday. night in Australia.
In-game concerns
Opetaia, 29, will have to fight much better against Zurdo Ramírez to defeat the unified champion. The deficiency that Jai showed on the inside against Nyika tonight would be taken advantage of by Zurdo, who is an excellent melee fighter. That’s the best part of his game. He would beat up Opetaia in an inside fight and overwhelm him with punches.
Tonight we saw that Jai is a one-armed fighter, who is only capable of landing his left with authority and needs to be on the outside to generate power. He was average on the inside as Nyika forced him to fight by closing space, grappling and punching. If it had been Ramirez, Jai would have been out of his league and probably would have been knocked out.
According to Jake Donovan, Tasman Fighters boss Mick Francis, May 3 is a potential date for a unification clash between Opetaia and Zurdo Ramirez. Now, the complicated part is trying to negotiate the game. That’s not going to be easy.
Opetaia is a good fighter in the Bivol mold, but he has no inside game and is not cut out for a fighter like Gilberto Ramirez, Oleksandr Usyk or even Artur Beterbiev. It’s too one-dimensional and more of the nonsensical type.
Nyika’s Dogfighting Tactics
“I want those unification fights. “I want all those belts around my waist,” Opetaia told the media at the post-fight press conference following his victory over Nyika. “I’m chasing unification fights, but if they put someone else in front of me, I can’t help it.
“I was a little shocked by how it came out,” Opetaia said of Nyika’s attack. “My old man told me, ‘He wants to have a dog fight.’ ‘If you want to have a dog fight, let’s have it.’”
Nyika was fighting Opetaia on equal terms, fighting and hitting him from the inside. His tactics of turning the fight into a dogfight were quite effective. Jai ended the fight in the fourth round when he came forward, hurt Nyika with a left hand and then overwhelmed him with combinations.
