Boxing results: Jai Opetaia stops Jack Massey

IBF Cruiserweight Champion Jai Opetaia (26-0, 20 KOs) put on an impressive performance, scoring a sixth-round knockout of #10 contender Jack Massey (22-3, 12 KOs) in a voluntary defense Saturday night at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The fight was stopped at 2:00 of round six after Massey’s trainer threw in the towel. Massey fought passively throughout the bout, looking afraid to throw punches for fear of being countered by one of the powerful shots from southpaw Opetaia.

Massey (31) was hit at will by Opetaia from the first round and rarely threw anything back. When Massey occasionally hit Opetaia with a good shot, he made the champion retreat like a bolt of lightning had struck him.

The 29-year-old Opetaia was uncomfortable with Massey’s shots, but the British fighter did not hit him enough to be competitive. It would have been interesting if Massey had gone all out with his offense as Opetaia would freeze for a split second when he hit clean. This indicates that his hit resistance is not as good as it should be for him to be in wars.

Overall, Opetaia fared much better than in his previous fight against Mairis Briedis on May 18 this year. In the later rounds of that fight, Opetaia struggled under the pressure of the 39-year-old Briedis, and he was stymied by the former champion.

That fight showed Opetaia doesn’t like to be pressured and doesn’t react well when he gets hit. We saw some of that tonight as well, but Massey didn’t provide enough offense to highlight the weakness that Briedis exposed.

Opetaia wants to fight the winner of tonight’s main event between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitri Bivol. He’ll stand a good chance of beating Bivol, who can’t hit, but Beterbiev will be a nightmare for him.

Beterbiev would attack relentlessly, knock down Opetaia on the inside and likely knock him out early. Opetaia showed tonight he doesn’t have an inside game. He is strictly an outside bomber with no heart for the give and take in a war.