GOLD COAST, AUSTRALIA – Jai Opetaia enhanced his status as the world’s leading cruiserweight when he brutally stopped David Nyika in four rounds to successfully defend his IBF title.
For three entertaining rounds at the Gold Coast Convention Centre the Australian and his previously undefeated challenger willingly traded.
They had both been hurt by the time, in the fourth, Opetaia landed the definitive left hand that dropped Nyika painfully and heavily, and to the extent that he remained on the canvas for a worryingly long period while concerns about his condition grew.
Nyika, like Opetaia 29, eventually returned to his feet and made his way from the ring. The New Zealander had accepted Wednesday’s fight on three weeks’ notice after the injured Huseyin Cinkara’s withdrawal, and the aggression he fought with enhanced his reputation and may ensure further opportunities come his way.
Opetaia last fought in his home country in July 2022, when he so impressively resisted a broken jaw to dethrone Mairis Briedis as champion. He had since fought and won a further four fights in England and Saudi Arabia, before agreeing to a homecoming fight billed as “The Return of the Champion” ahead of an expected unification contest with Gilberto Ramirez later in 2025.
If Opetaia is also recognised as Australia’s finest fighter, when he is involved in fights of the nature that unfolded with Nyika he is similarly widely recognised as its most violent and entertaining.
Observers of his profession increasingly consider him capable of being a similarly impressive cruiserweight to Oleksandr Usyk, Evander Holyfield and David Haye, but for all of the excitement he guaranteed against Nyika, the performance he produced was also among his most flawed.
Nyika’s aggression, from the opening bell and partly a consequence of a significant advantage in size, contributed to the recklessness with which, until the fourth round, Opetaia also regularly missed his target.
He succeeded early in the first round with a left to the chin, before soon taking a straight right. He then swung and fell short with a wild right hand, and later two lefts, before landing a left to the body, missing with a further left hand, and succeeding, to the body, with successive rights.
When he fell short with another right hand towards the start of the second it was perhaps a further reminder of the need for greater caution, at least against so attack-minded an opponent and until his sense of timing and distance was established. Opetaia landed a right hand and then hurt Nyika with a left, provoking further aggression from Nyika as they traded, leading to the straight right hand that hurt Opetaia before the round’s end.
Opetaia countered another straight right with a left-right combination towards the start of the third, and when he succeeded to Nyika’s body and then landed a right hook to the head he showed the first convincing signs that he was more successfully reading his opponent. Nyika’s dimensions continued to prove problematic, and his raw power hurt Opetaia again when he landed another right hand while the champion was trapped on the ropes.
His momentum built further from the start of the fourth, when he landed a straight left hand and then a right, before another left hook that landed with power and accuracy. Nyika was again hurt but remained resilient, and after Opetaia showed an increased cultured edge to move around him and eventually land a right from close range the challenger went to the canvas for the first time.
When Nyika returned to his feet and they continued to trade, two successive right hands left Nyika vulnerable on the ropes and struggling to remain upright. Opetaia then threw the devastating left hand that immediately ended the third defence of his title; after the agonising wait for Nyika to recover, the timing of the stoppage was confirmed at 2.17.
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