Jai Opetaia weathers Mairis Briedis’ late rally to reclaim belt

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Jai Opetaia survived a late surge from Mairis Briedis to hold on for a unanimous-decision victory and regain the IBF cruiserweight title early Sunday at Kingdom Area.

Opetaia, ESPN’s No. 1 cruiserweight, was badly damage in Spherical 10 and misplaced the ultimate three rounds on all three scorecards however banked sufficient of the early frames to win the battle by way of scores of 117-111, 116-112 and 116-112.

Opetaia (25-0, 19 KOs) was stripped of his title in December when he elected to battle Ellis Zorro in Riyadh for a career-high payday fairly than face his obligatory challenger, Briedis, in a rematch of their July 2022 assembly.

Opetaia, a 28-year-old Australian, delivered a spectacular first-round knockout of Zorro and proceeded to signal on for the rematch with Briedis, whom he defeated by way of unanimous choice the primary time. Opetaia suffered a damaged jaw within the first assembly, and each fighters suffered a damaged nostril Saturday.

“We knew we have been in for a troublesome battle, I stated it from the entire lead-up,” Opetaia stated. “We have been prepared for 12 rounds of conflict, and that is what we bought. … He bought me with an excellent shot [in Round 10]. He bought me with a couple of good photographs. He is a troublesome dude, retains coming ahead. He wished it. I may hear the ache in his f—ing punches, so I take my hat off to him.”

After Briedis (28-3, 20 KOs), a 39-year-old Latvian, broke although in Spherical 10, he picked up the place he left off within the championship rounds, pouring it on Opetaia, who was bleeding from the nostril and mouth.

This was Briedis’ first motion because the first battle with Opetaia. Briedis’ solely different defeat got here towards Oleksandr Usyk in a cruiserweight title unification in 2018 by way of majority choice. Usyk, in fact, meets Tyson Fury in the primary occasion Sunday for the undisputed heavyweight championship.

“Man, I broke his nostril; he broke mine,” Opetaia stated. “We simply stored punching on. So, shout out to him. … I knew he was going to come back sturdy after he [broke] my nostril. That type of rocked me a bit, however we stayed sensible. We simply stored boxing and we gained the battle, in order that’s all that issues.”

Opetaia stated he’d wish to unify 200-pound titles subsequent. Specifically, he known as for the winner of the June 15 WBO cruiserweight title battle between Chris Billam-Smith and Richard Riakporhe.

“After which after that,” Opetaia stated, “we’ll accumulate the remainder of the belts.”