IBF and Ring cruiserweight Jai Opetaia (28-0, 22 KOs) floored the hapless Claudio Squeo (17-1, 9 KOs), breaking his jaw, in a brutal fifth-round technical knockout on Sunday night at the Gold Coast Convention Centre in Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia.
In the first knockdown, Opetaia connected with a hard body shot in the fourth round, causing the tired, red-faced Squeo to go down from the pain. Squeo made it out of the round by clinching Opetaia. He looked in bad shape from that point on.
Opetaia Breaks Squeo’s Jaw
It was pure target practice for Jai following the knockdown, with Italian Squeo being too short, slow, and exhausted from soaking up repeated lefts.
The second knockdown was in the fifth, with Opetaia landing a thudding right hook thrown with full force to the head of Opetaia, who immediately sank to his knees and was counted out by referee Robert Hoyle. Jai recognized that he’d broken Squeo’s jaw.
Opetaia was ahead 40-36 on all four scorecards at the time of the stoppage late in round five. Squeo couldn’t land much of anything in the fight due to his short stature.
Jai’s Flaws: Left-Hand Heavy
When he did attempt to engage, Jai would move away, much like Dmitry Bivol, with the way he retreats when attacked. However, Opetais’s offense against Squeo was left-hand heavy with very few combinations, showing that he didn’t want to get hit.
Targeting Gilberto Ramirez Unification
After the fight, Opetaia said he wanted to fight a unification match next with WBC and WBO champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez. However, that’ll be up to the promoters or perhaps Turki Alalshikh if he wants to help lure Ramirez into taking this risky fight.
After tonight’s execution-like victory, it’s questionable whether Gilberto would want to bother taking the fight with Jai. Later this month, Ramirez defends against Yuniel Dorticos on June 28th. So, Opetaia will need to wait until the smoke clears from that fight before he can potentially set up a unification fight with Gilberto if he’s victorious.
If Opetaia can’t get Ramirez or the other cruiserweight champion, Badou Jack, to fight him, his promoters need to find better opposition for him to fight. The 34-year-old Squeo was picked from near the bottom of the IBF’s rankings at the #14 spot, and looked entirely out of his depth in this fight.
Overpaying Top Contenders Needed
There are a lot better contenders in the division than Squeo that could have been found for Jai. Even if Opetaia has to surrender some of his purse to get these fighters, he needs to.
Ideally, his promoters should invest in him by overpaying the top contenders to face him. How else is Opetaia going to become more popular? Fighting tomato cans like Squeo isn’t going to do it, as this fight generated very little buzz outside of Australia.