Jai Opetia needs to improve before Heavyweight jump

Before Opetaia fights the big dogs at HW, he needs to fight someone like Chisora or Miller, someone that can give him a taste of the HW division which I thought Usyk learnt a lot from.

From what I have seen, I can see Opetaia beating Parker if he suddenly fights the top dogs, but the likes of Dubois, Wardley just hit so bloody hard and are tough AF. Usyk and Fury are the final bosses of HW, AJ is too unpredictable. However, Opetaia does have a great chin, he does get hit a lot and a shot from the likes of Wardley to Dubois would stop him hence Opetaia needs a proper learning fight at HW such as Chisora or Miller.

 

Opetaia will size up if/when he moves to heavyweight, I think a lot of people underestimate how lean he is and how hard he works in camp.

He is the same height as a fighter like Itauma and would look similar buildwise if he put on 40lbs of fat and had the same body fat percentage as tauma. And no one is saying Itauma doesn't have the frame for heavy weight.

Sure he'd be on the smaller side for a heavyweight, but if his power and chin carry across, and those can improve if he was draining himself before, he will be a hard night's work for anyone in the division.

Anyway he should definitely unify first in cruiserweight and follow Usyk's strategy to heavyweight, taking a couple years and some warm up/build up fights in the new weight clas before cashing in his free title shot from unifying at cruiser.

 

100%. He's got talent to burn but s

100%. He has talent to burn but if he stands right in front of his opponents while winging wide punches he's gonna get ko'ed badly and he may not have to go to heavy weight to do it. He got wobbled last night against someone who isn't good enough to do that.
His future is very bright but he needs to amend his technique if he's going to achieve his potential.

 

I think he is much better off unifying agai st Zurdo and Badou Jack for now. The Jack fight would be easy too make some nice money since Jack is popular in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. After those fights, perhaps enticing and against Beterbiev if he is successful against Bivol in their rewatch. Again, the Saudi's would be all over that fight and Beterbiev is probably having a tough time making 175 at his age.

Jai still has some bug money fights to him at 200 pounds before jumping up to heavy.

 

Honestly Opetaia only looks about 6 feet tall to me

 

I think Jai's ceiling is prime Michael Hunter level

 

At least 6'1, similar to Briedis
Not so far from Usyk's 6'2.5

 

If he's going to do it, he should probably do it soon ish, he's going to be 30 this year and I'm guessing he's going to want to adapt a bit to the heavyweights.

But I would like to see him fight Ramirez first. Cruiser is kind of a wasteland at the moment besides Jai and a couple of others.