Rumor Mill Churns: Opetaia’s Team Denies Fury Knockdown Rumors

Image: Rumor Mill Churns: Opetaia's Team Denies Fury Knockdown Rumors
Riydah, Saudi Arabia: Jai Opetaia arrives at the Grand Arrivals ahead of this weekends ‘Day Of Reckoning’ Show. 19 December 2023 Picture By Mark Robinson Matchroom Boxing
By ciaran123 - 01/22/2024 - Comments

The rumor mill continues to churn about Jai Opetaia dropping Tyson Fury hard during sparring, totally dominating the 35-year-old WBC heavyweight champion, and being sent home by the Gyspy King’s team to save him from getting hurt before his February 17th fight with Oleksandr Usyk.

Five Rounds and a Return

Team Fury brought the Ring Magazine cruiserweight champion Opetaia over to their camp in Saudi Arabia to help the unbeaten Gypsy King with sparring to mimic the southpaw style of Usyk.

Oddly enough, after five rounds of sparring with Fury, Opetaia was sent home. Fans aren’t buying the official explanation that Team Fury doesn’t need the southpaw cruiserweight Opetaia (24-0, 19 KOs) because why wouldn’t they need him?

It doesn’t make sense that Opetaia flew 14 hours from Australia to Saudi Arabia to help Fury train and was told he wasn’t needed after five rounds.

Knockdown Talk Dismissed

Opetaia’s co-promoters denied the sparring stories, saying it’s “Not true” and that he needed to return home to finalize his training for his February 17th rematch with Mairis Briedis. Those two are fighting for the vacant IBF cruiserweight title recently stripped from Opetaia.

Obviously, Opetaia and his team are too professional to talk about what happened during the five rounds of sparring with Fury, but fans view this as a situation where Jai was too vicious, too aggressive, and too powerful for Tyson to handle.

The lightning speed and power of Opetaia’s scorching straight left hands had to have been a shock for Fury, who at this point in his career is slow in reacting to straight power shots thrown down the pipe the way Jai throws them.

Even before these guys linked up for sparring, one could predict that this would end badly with Fury getting dropped repeatedly and Opetaia sent packing.

If you’ve seen what Opetaia has done to his last two opponents at cruiserweight, Ellis Zorro and Jordan Thompson, scoring one-punch knockouts, it’s not hard to imagine that he did the same thing to Fury.

Those guys are faster than Fury, yet they couldn’t get out of the way of Opetaia’s speedy, powerful straight lefts. If they couldn’t avoid Opetaia’s shots, what would happen with the slow 35-year-old Fury?

If the sparring story is true, Fury should have kept Opetaia in camp because he will need all the help he can get for the Usyk fight.