Give Opetaia a watch this weekend

Opetaia had hand surgery in 2022 to fix hand problems which had plagued his whole career . Jai Opetaia says he is 100 per cent healthy following surgery on his hand, saying his left hand "feels like a whole new hand".

 

I wouldn't say he is a monstrous puncher with 1 punch KO power, more of an accumulation of damage that gets the stoppage, so your classification of boxer-puncher is accurate

But he loves to land that backland left down the pipe & that hand being damaged probably impacted how hard he decided to punch with it. I felt like it came off much stronger in the Thompson fight compared to his earlier fights. I felt sorry for Thompson especially because his ringside mom let out a blood curdling scream when he got KO'd, wish they threw in the towel at the end of the 3rd

He wanted to make a statement I guess in his first overseas outing for all the loose talk about KO'ing him from the Thompson camp & Eddie Hearn trying to make the show about Thompson. After the fight he called out Eddie on it & before the fight he mentioned in an interview that the hotel rooms Matchroom put them up in weren't good as well as other issues with the accomodation

This was the interview iirc: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-fqpiv-1b07c8b4

After the fight he was saying Thompson's team were really underestimating his power

Him calling out fast Eddie on his bull****

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After how much his fan following went up with that aggressive showing he put on against Thompson plus him saying he felt like his left hand got an upgrade, we can probably expect more finish the fight with a KO aggression from him

 

Just went back & checked, the stuff about the dingy hotel rooms Matchroom put them up in, lack of a car to the training comes in last 7 mins, as he says that was just fuel to the fire

Good interview where they spend time discussing his London Olympics experience & his dad

 

You are welcome

I think they asked about his walkaround weight as well in this interview (not 100% sure if it was this) but I remember he said 95 kg/211 lbs which means he doesn't cut a whole lot to make CW. Just thought you would like to know as you are interested in rehydration weights of fighters

 

Opetaia is a class operator but still not at all like Usyk

Fury currently is sparring basically a walking heavybag and so is Usyk. Not impressed with their early camp sparring partners. We'll see who comes out of the woodwork in January.

 

They did my boy dirty.

They will do anything to keep an Aussie down but you can’t. He will be back with a vengeance to smite his foes.

 

Short segment on Opetaia from 2014 as he was preparing for the Commonwealth games

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The guy is absolutely brilliant. He’s probably unbeatable at cruiserweight and may very well do serious damage at heavyweight when he steps up in a few years.