OFTEN, it is difficult to identify how a world champion, seamlessly going about their business through each performance, became an elite-level operator.
We are told that a combination of talent and hard work will contribute to their success, leaving plenty to the imagination as one gazes at their masterful ringcraft.
But still, while certain questions are better left unanswered – enhancing a fighter’s almost palpable mystique – it is always worth digging a little deeper, desperately attempting to understand how an individual of such brilliance is crafted.
In that sense, a brief clip of an 18-year-old Jai Opetaia, training under the beating sun in Australia, makes for particularly fascinating viewing, especially when considering what he has achieved within the decade that followed.
The IBF world cruiserweight champion is known, perhaps more than anything else, for his fluid footwork, always darting in and out of range to set-up each attack.
But along with that, the dynamic southpaw possesses a tremendous degree of dynamite in both fists, his thudding bombs made only more potent by an explosive approach in the ring.
Yet it seems that the athlete we see today – both technically sharp and physically imposing – was always destined to emerge sooner or later.
In a short documentary with Trans World Sport, it becomes starkly obvious – while watching a fresh-faced Opetaia, 27-0 (21 KOs), pump the iron and pound the treadmill – that his style was not by chance; it was diligently designed through each training session.
“[With a] complete boxer, everything comes from the ground up – they’re very balanced, very agile,” said Hayden Knowles, the Australian’s strength and conditioning coach at the time.
“Jai has that natural ability, but now, as he’s growing and getting stronger, we’re trying to get him [to be] more powerful as well.
“So as he develops, and as he grows older and, eventually, when he turns pro, he’s going to be a very powerful athlete.”
Sure enough, Opetaia has become exactly that, a formidable puncher with the ability to create angles and, in doing so, find the openings for his bone-shuddering shots.
It is unusual, too, for an 18-year-old to engage in such training, tailored specifically for them to achieve a fiercely desirable outcome.
For some punchers, their power will come more naturally, whereas others – like Opetaia, it seems – spend years refining that vital attribute.
Either way, it remains almost impossible for a fighter to survive – at the top level, that is – without a level of spite at their disposal.
But at least now we know, ahead of his clash with Claudio Squeo this Saturday, exactly how Opetaia forged the building blocks of his supremacy at 200lbs.
