IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) says he wants a unification fight against WBA/WBO champ Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez next following his fourth-round blowout of challenger David Nyika (10-1, 9 KOs) on Wednesday night in Australia.
Inside Game Concerns
Opetaia, 29, will have to fight a lot better against Zurdo Ramirez for him 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 outstanding fighter in close. That’s the best part of his game. He would beat up Opetaia in a fight on the inside and overwhelm him with punches.
We saw tonight that Jai is a one-armed fighter, only capable of landing his left with authority and needing to be on the outside to generate power. He was average on the inside when Nyika forced him into that fight by closing the space, wrestling, and punching. If this had been Ramirez, Jai would have been out of his league and likely been knocked out.
According to Jake Donovan, Mick Francis the head of Tasman Fighters, May 3rd is a potential date for a unification clash between Opetaia and Zurdo Ramirez. Now, the tricky party is trying to get the match negotiated. That’s not going to be easy.
Opetaia is a good fighter in the Bivol mold, but he has zero inside game, and is not built for a fighter like Gilberto Ramirez, Oleksandr Usyk, or even Artur Beterbiev. He’s too one-dimensional and more of a potshot type.
Nyika’s Dogfight Tactics
“I want those unification fights. I want all those belts around my waist,” said Opetaia to the media at the post-fight press conference after his win over Nyika. “I’m chasing unification fights, but if they put someone else in front of me, I can’t help that.
“I was kind of in shock on how he came out,” said Opetaia about Nyika’s aggression. “My old man said to me, ‘He wants to have a dog fight.’ ‘If he wants to have a dog fight, let’s have a dog fight.’”
Nyika was fighting Opetaia on even terms, brawling and mauling him inside. His tactics of turning the fight into a dogfight were quite effective. Jai ended the fight in the fourth round when he got on the outside, hurt Nyika with a left hand, and then overwhelmed him with combinations.
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