Unbelievable Comeback Jai Opetaia Shocks the World Reclaims Belt from Mairis Briedis in Epic Showdown

  Riyadh, saudi arabia -- jai opetaia survived a overdue surge from mairis briedis to cling on for a unanimous-decision victory and regain the ibf cruiserweight title early sunday at country arena.

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Opetaia, espn's no. 1 cruiserweight, was badly hurt in round 10 and lost the very last three rounds on all three scorecards but banked enough of the early frames to win the combat thru rankings of 117-111, 116-112 and 116-112.

Opetaia (25-zero, 19 kos) changed into stripped of his name in december while he elected to fight ellis zorro in riyadh for a profession-excessive payday as opposed to face his obligatory challenger, briedis, in a rematch in their july 2022 assembly.

Opetaia, a 28-year-old australian, added a brilliant first-round knockout of zorro and proceeded to sign up for the rematch with briedis, whom he defeated via unanimous decision the first time. Opetaia suffered a damaged jaw inside the first assembly, and each warring parties suffered a damaged nose saturday.

"we knew we have been in for a difficult fight, i stated it from the entire lead-up," remarked opetaia. "We were ready for twelve rounds of fighting, and that's precisely what we got.. ... He got me with a good shot [in Round 10]. He got me with a few suitable pictures. He's a difficult dude, continues coming ahead. He desired it. I should listen 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 round 10, he picked up in which he left off in the championship rounds, pouring it on opetaia, who changed into bleeding from the nostril and mouth.

This turned into briedis' first action for the reason that first combat with opetaia. Briedis' best different defeat came in opposition to oleksandr usyk in a cruiserweight title unification in 2018 through majority choice. Usyk, of direction, meets tyson fury in the essential event sunday for the undisputed heavyweight championship.

Opetaia remarked, "Guy, I broke his nose; he broke mine." "we simply saved punching on. So, shout out to him. ... I knew he became going to come robust after he [broke] my nose. That kind of rocked me a bit, but we stayed smart. We simply kept boxing and we received the combat, so it's all that topics."

Opetaia stated he'd like to unify 200-pound titles subsequent. Specifically, he called for the winner of the june 15 wbo cruiserweight identify combat between chris billam-smith and richard riakporhe.

"and then after that," opetaia said, "we are going to gather the rest of the belts."

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