CRUISER CONTROL AUSTRALIAN STAR JAI OPETAIA IS THE WORLD’S LEADING
CRUISERWEIGHT, BUT SECURING UNIFICATION BOUTS CONTINUES TO BE A SOURCE OF REAL FRUSTRATION By Michael Rosenthal
J ai Opetaia seemed overwhelmed when he found himself standing between two all-time greats – Roy Jones Jr. and Lennox Lewis – before a segment of the Inside The Ring show during Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford fight week in Las Vegas. The unbeaten cruiserweight titleholder lives in Gold Coast, Australia, which is almost 8,000 miles and a world away from the epicenter of the sport in the United States. He simply doesn’t rub elbows with boxing royalty Down Under. And then he did, which still leaves him flabbergasted. “These guys were like my homework at school,” said Opetaia, who was in Sin City for the first time as an established fighter. “My dad (Tapu, who is also his trainer) made me watch videos of them as I was learning to box, the way they moved, the way they fought. Lennox Lewis was one of the best of his generation.
Claudio Squeo succumbed to Opetaia’s attacks after suffering a broken jaw in the fifth round.
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