Jai Opetaia battles through broken jaw to defeat favored Mairis Briedis for IBF cruiserweight world title

Jai Opetaia 22-0 (17) achieved a 16 year dream when he defeated Mairis Briedis 28-2 (20) to claim the IBF and Ring Magazine world championships at the Gold Coast Convention Centre in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia on Saturday night.

The 27-year-old Australian southpaw dazzled in the early rounds, frustrating the Latvian champion with his speed and movement while landing hard shots to the body and head. Opetaia has the 37-year-old Briedis cut over his right eye in the first and by the fourth his nose was pouring blood.

Sensing he was behind on the cards, Briedis poured on the pressure in the back half of the fight but Opetaia proved too classy, running away with a unanimous decision victory by scores of 116-112, 115-113 and 116-112.

For Opetaia, it was the realisation of a dream he has had since before he was a teenager.

“Since he was 12 years old, this is what he’s wanted,” his mother said after the fight.

Asked when she knew he was special, she replied: “When he was born. Ask my neighbour, I told her.”

Despite losing, Briedis did get his pound of flesh. He broke Opetaia’s jaw on one side early in the fight and the other side late in the bout.

Trainer Mark Wilson only realised his charge had an injured jaw late in the fight.

“I didn’t know it was broken until the 11th round when you can evidently see that something was really amiss with it,” Wilson told foxsports.com.au.

“I thought, ‘We got through that, we’ve only got one to go. Run. Run.’

“I believe we were two or three or four rounds up, I thought. We were starting to maybe lose a couple late.

“I said, ‘Just move, mate. We’ve got to move. Don’t do anything silly. Move, move.’

“We got through there.”

Promoter Dean Lonergan likened the performance to Muhammad Ali against Ken Norton in their first bout when ‘The Greatest’ suffered a busted jaw.

“There’s no boxer who’s come through more adversity than him in the last six or seven years,” promoter Dean Lonergan told foxsports.com.au.

“Five years ago he fought with a broken hand and he kept fighting because he needed the money rather than stopping. We got that fixed about a year and a half ago.

“We had this fight set, then Briedis got Covid and Jai turns around and gets a unique rib injury that the surgeons had never seen before.

“I thought we had no chance of making this fight night and him being right.

“So for him to come out and perform like that, that’s one of the all-time great Australian performances.

“Reminiscent of what Jeff Horn did five years ago to the day against Manny Pacquiao, but that performance might have even exceeded what Jeff did on that night because Jeff didn’t have to fight nine rounds with a broken jaw.

“To come through a fight like that with a broken jaw, it’s just incredible. The last guy who did that was Muhammad Ali.

“I think he (Ali) broke it in the fifth round, in a world title fight.

“So for (Jai) to do that is nothing short of stunningly incredible.”

Opetaia was unable to be interviewed after the fight due to his jaw injury.

Lonergan has plans for the newly minted champ to make his first title defence against a fellow Australian, with his former sparring partner Jason ‘Warrior’ Whateley 10-0 (9) the likely choice.

“As soon as it’s right, my preference would be that we fight in Australia against an Australian,” Lonergan said.

“The most obvious guy would be Jason Whateley. He’s up there and qualified, he’s in the top 15 in the world, he’s had 10 pro fights and he’d be a great fight for Jai, but we’ll just wait and see.

“At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to what Jai wants. We’ll just talk through about what he wants and we’ll go from there.”