Jai Opetaia (29-0, 23 KOs) fought his third bout of 2025 and in none of them has it been necessary to get to know the judges’ verdict. The Australian fighter continues to wreak havoc in the cruiserweight division and this time his victim was 40-year-old veteran Huseyin Cinkara (23-1, 19 KOs), who was brutally knocked out in the eighth round.
Opetaia may not be the most complete fighter, but he is showing extraordinary physical strength and his punching power makes him the most feared cruiserweight right now. Logic dictates that sooner rather than later he should face Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez for supremacy in the division that precedes heavyweight.
In any case, the most recent was his triumph at home against the German-Turk Cinkara, who was clearly dominated and in the eighth round received a brutal left hook – Opetaia is left-handed – that hit the target and left the visiting fighter lying on the canvas for several minutes. Cinkara was unconscious after bouncing off the ropes. There were moments of anguish for all those present while the veteran fighter was attended by doctors.
Cinkara was eventually incorporated and ultimately stood up, at which point he was cheered, although he then had to be taken to hospital, where he underwent several tests. His translator reported that he even fractured a vertebra in the fall. “He is going to stay two or three days, he has a brain hematoma and a fractured vertebra in the T1 region. He took a really hard hit, when he got the impact and fell, he hit his head against the ropes right on top of the vertebrae. The ropes were hard and he bounced and hit his head on the floor. The poor guy was scared. He doesn’t know how to speak English,” his translator confessed.
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