Jai Opetaia vs Claudio Squeo Predictions: ‘The Red Bull’ will need wings to escape Opetaia KO

IBF and The Ring cruiserweight champion Jai Opetaia faces the energetic Claudio ‘The Red Bull’ Squeo this Sunday, June 8 live on DAZN. The meeting of the destructive champion and his unbeaten challenger takes place at the Gold Coast Convention Centre in Broadbeach, Australia.

Here are my Jai Opetaia vs Claudio Squeo predictions ahead of this world title rumble.

Jai Opetaia vs. Claudio Squeo Odds

Opetaia is a gargantuan 1/200 to prevail here. Short of getting stuck in traffic, we really are expecting him to do this. If you disagree, then 20/1 is your lottery ticket. The draw is also priced at 20/1, which says it all.

Jai Opetaia vs. Claudio Squeo Fight Preview

Claudio Squeo is a bit like Noel Edmonds on the moon. You don’t know how he got there, you know he won’t be there for long and the whole thing would be infinitely improved if Mr Blobby showed up. 

I might be erring a little on the unfair side when it comes to the Italian. But it is difficult to ascertain why the lineal cruiserweight king and one of the most destructive fighters on the planet will stand opposite Squeo on Sunday.

Squeo beat someone called Williams Ocando for something called the WBC Latino cruiserweight title back in 2022. Both an opponent and a title even the most ardent fans would struggle to recall. By the way, Ocando has fought nine times since facing Squeo for that confusing bauble, losing seven times.

The opponents do not get much better than that. Niklas Ransen was 17-2-1 going in. He is now 17-4-1. The rest are names I will likely never type on these pages again. Do leave a comment and prove me wrong if Orlando de Jesus Estrada (16-20-2) or Soso Abuladze (12-30-1) ever get their Cinderella Man moment.

Squeo might have got in on the Rocky principle. If you recall, in the first film Apollo Creed selected Sylvester Stallone’s lovable pug of the canvas due to the fact Balboa had a cool nickname: ‘The Italian Stallion’. Well our Italian on Sunday calls himself ‘The Red Bull’. Presumably to sound dead hard and not because, like SV Austria Salzburg or SSV Markranstadt, he has been taken over by an energy drink manufacturer.

Squeo will need a few cans of Red Bull and perhaps even the wings from the advert to make it through more than a handful of rounds in this one. I know I have set the table for the latest boxing fairytale. But fairytales are not real. James ‘Buster’ Douglas was actually quite good. Andy Ruiz Jr. was excellent, but misjudged based on his weight. Hasim Rahman was a tidy operator. Squeo is none of the above. Sorry.

Opetaia’s 21 knockouts in 27 wins, with no losses, is deceptive. On paper it does not read power, but two of those distance wins were four-rounders. Two were points victories over Mairis Briedis, the best cruiserweight not named Opetaia or Oleksandr Usyk since David Haye haunted the division on the way to the heavyweight crown.

The truth is, Opetaia hits like Superman chinning Lex Luthor when he wears that daft green mech suit. In his six world title fights, only Briedis has lasted the distance. Opetaia loves beating a Brit, as any dyed-in-the-wool Aussie does. The IBF and The Ring champion took less than 11 cumulative rounds to knock out Jack Massey, Ellis Zorro and Jordan Thompson.

It is without jingoistic fervour that I say, hand on heart, any of that trio would beat Squeo. David Nyika, the decidedly-non-British New Zealander that Opetaia walloped in four might be about Squeo level. But he did have a win over Tommy Karpency, a name the balding and greying among you will remember lost world titles fights to Nathan Cleverly and Adonis Stevenson a decade ago. 

This is the inherent problem with Opetaia. Fans love to watch him fight. He offers excitement every time. But the fights he takes are rarely inspiring. A unification with WBC kingpin Badou Jack or WBA/WBO holder Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez would set the pulse racing. Our own Chris Billam-Smith, bravely outgunned by the latter in a wonderful fight, would be an interesting night’s work. 

But yet again we are awaiting an Opetaia fight where the excitement comes from which round he does it in, not whether he does it. Sorry Claudio, real life isn’t Rocky. Cool nickname, though.

Jai Opetaia vs. Claudio Squeo Full Card

Jai Opetaia vs. Claudio Squeo

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Jai Opetaia vs. Claudio Squeo Predictions

I’m picking Claud… okay you got me. At the risk of this article making me look like a massive idiot when ‘The Red Bull’ shocks the world, I’m picking Opetaia here and it will not take him long to do it.

I’ll pull the curtain back a bit guys, I hate picking a specific round. Three minutes out of a spectacle that potentially runs to 36? Do me a favour. But when Opetaia is 1/14 for the knockout, you have to get creative.

Even rounds 1-3 is short-priced at 8/13. A nice bit of caution for your acca on a boxing-packed weekend, but we’re going all the way.

Opetaia knows how to break a challenger. If a fighter has never lost, as is the case with Squeo, it usually goes one of two ways. They keep getting up because losing is simply not something that happens to them. Or they crumble because they have never dealt with adversity.

I am going to go bang in the middle of those two approaches. I think Opetaia ends up with the indignity of being stretched all the way to round two before scoring the knockout. Opetaia in the second is priced at 7/2.

You can find all our latest boxing betting tips and analysis at our Betfred Insights Boxing page and our latest boxing odds here.