-
Mike Coppinger, ESPN Boxing Insider
Jai Opetaia retained his IBF cruiserweight title Wednesday with a spectacular fourth-round KO of David Nyika in Gold Coast, Australia.
Opetaia, ESPN’s No. 1 cruiserweight, and Nyika engaged in a firefight from the opening bell that featured nonstop exchanges of power punches. Nyika, a 29-year-old Olympic bronze medalist from New Zealand, was fighting on the world-class level for the first time after he stepped in as an injury replacement.
Nyika sought to gain Opetaia’s respect early as he pushed him back and unloaded with power combinations. The sizable leap in competition proved to be too much ultimately as the Australian started to time Nyika with his vaunted right hook.
Opetaia (27-0, 20 KOs) used his money punch to knock down the challenger in Round 4 after he set up the right hook with a left hand in the clinch. Nyika (10-1, 9 KOs) was up before the count of 10 on unsteady legs, and that’s when Opetaia moved in for the finish.
Opetaia, 29, then delivered a right hook followed by a left cross and another right hook that forced Nyika to hold the ropes. A final left hand sent him crashing to mat face first as he was unconscious. Nyika later regained his senses and walked out of the ring on his own.
“He took the fight on three weeks’ notice, he come here to fight, he gave me a dogfight; I respect that,” Opetaia said. “With that league I’m in, I thought he was going to come out here and box and play games, but he come here and he slugged it out, he wanted these belts and he showed that. I take my hat off to David. … He kept coming forward, he kept punching, that was a good fight.”
Nyika replaced unheralded mandatory challenger Huseyin Cinkara, who withdrew from the bout with a broken ankle suffered in training. Opetaia was making the fifth defense of his lineal cruiserweight championship.
He won the title with an upset victory over Mairis Briedis in July 2022 in Australia. In that fight, Opetaia fought through a broken jaw to score a unanimous decision victory. After a routine title defense, Opetaia was stripped of his IBF title after he passed up a rematch with Briedis that was ordered by the organization.
He defeated Briedis via unanimous decision again in May to regain his IBF title and then retained it with a sixth-round TKO of Jack Massey in October.
Opetaia now wants to add two more titles to his collection. He called for a unification fight with Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, who owns the WBO and WBA titles. Ramirez is ranked No. 2 at 200 pounds by ESPN.
“Ramirez, I’m coming for the belts,” Opetaia said. “I’ve been waiting for these fights for a long time.”
Opetaia’s promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing, called on Ramirez’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, to make the unification fight happen in May. Hearn also has his eyes on a much bigger bout for Opetaia in the next “12 to 18 months.”
“I believe he’s the only person right now … cruiserweight or heavyweight who can give Oleksandr Usyk a real, real fight,” Hearn said. “But to do it, we gotta pick up every belt in the cruiserweight division first to give him the credibility … to make Oleksandr Usyk get in the ring.”