IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia expects challenger David Nyika to be cagey as a result of he received’t need to get hit once they meet of their 12-round headliner this Wednesday, January eighth, on the Gold Coast Conference Centre, Broadbeach, Australia. The occasion shall be proven dwell on DAZN.
Opetaia (26-0, 20 KOs) has sparred with the unbeaten #10 IBF-rated Nyika (10-0, 9 KOs), and he feels he’s not going to need to style his energy. He thinks he’ll damage Nyika if he connects with something.
Fight Freeze
It’s believed that Opetaia has been trying previous Nyika in direction of a possible combat in opposition to unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, which promoter Eddie Hearn has been speaking about. He’s additionally concerned with preventing a unification with WBA and WBO cruiserweight champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez.
Nyika noticed what Mairis Briedis did to the southpaw Opetaia of their rematch final 12 months and is aware of he breaks underneath stress. He can’t deal with it when he begins taking punishment, so he will get on his bike and does something to keep away from getting hit.
Opetaia’s entire mystique disappeared within the second half of his rematch with the 39-year-old Briedis on Could 18th. He couldn’t deal with the stress the previous champion placed on him.
I ponder what Turki Al-Shiekh thought when he watched Opetaia. It seemed like a basic instance of a soldier in fight freeze. Opetaia seemed locked up, frozen, and mentally paralyzed from the stress Briedis was placing on him. Turki needed to have seen what I noticed. Opetaia seemed like an entire mess. He appeared damaged on the finish of that combat.
“I’m proud of all of the backing. They again me as a result of I preserve successful fights. I preserve performing,” stated Jai Opetaia to Jai McAllister’s YouTube channel, speaking about Turki Al-Shiekh backing him. “The stress is on, let’s do it. Like I stated, ‘It’s do or die.’
“I don’t know. I’m curious to see how he comes out, how aggressive he comes out,” stated Opetaia when requested how his combat with Nyika would play out. “I do know he doesn’t need to get hit, as a result of I do know if I f**** hit him, he’s going to be damage. It’s going to be a chess match. Let’s see how he goes.”
Exploiting Weak spot
Opetaia, 29, is being backed now, but it surely all may finish if Nyika blasts him to the Neptune-like Planet 9 within the photo voltaic system’s outer reaches with a few of the large photographs he shall be touchdown.
“I by no means intention for decrease than the highest, and Jai is the person proper now,” Nyika instructed Jai McAllister. “In the direction of the top of the time that I used to be sparring with him, I used to be getting the higher of him. We made the manager choice to cease working with him as a result of we bought all of the intel that we’d like.”
It feels like Nyika discovered Opetaia in direction of the top of their spars and sure found the important thing to beating him. It’s fairly apparent. He doesn’t cope with stress effectively, and his resume is fairly barren of high quality opposition. He’s solely fought one good man, Briedis, and that was on the finish of his profession. A youthful model of Briedis would have been a nightmare for Opetaia.
“I believe he tries to blow all people out of the water, and he’s carried out a fairly good job of it. I’ve seen the fellows that he’s fought, and none of them actually had strong or sound sport plans,” stated Nyika about a whole lot of the delicate guys that Opetaia has crushed.
High quality Of Foes
It’s been fairly simple for Opetaia to attain knockouts as a result of he’s not been preventing high quality opposition throughout his profession, other than his two fights in opposition to Briedis.
Opetaia’s Finest Opponents:
– Mairis Briedis
– Jack Massey
– Ellis Zorro
– Jordan Thompson
– Mark Flanagan
These will not be nice fighters. The one one you possibly can say that’s good was Briedis, however he was previous his greatest years at 39. Any fighter can look good once they’re feasting on the kind of opposition Opetaia has been preventing his total 10-year skilled profession.
