{"id":891034,"date":"2026-09-10T22:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/891034\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T22:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T22:58:11","slug":"you-have-to-break-yourself-inside-jai-opetaias-brutal-phuket-training-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/891034\/","title":{"rendered":"“You have to break yourself”: Inside Jai Opetaia\u2019s brutal Phuket training camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

By 11am in Phuket, most fighters have already finished their morning training. The heat has settled over Donegal Den, the new boxing gym opened by long-time Irish trainer John Hutchinson. Team Opetaia have already completed their morning run and are back in the gym for the second session of the day. Jai Opetaia is working on the heavy bag while his father and trainer, Tapu \u201cTap\u201d Opetaia, calls out instructions from nearby.<\/p>\n

Tap is approachable and relaxed away from training, but when the work starts there is a noticeable change. He watches closely and corrects what he sees.<\/p>\n

Training at this time of day is not easy. Most fighters who have spent time in Thailand will avoid the middle of the day when they can, but for Team Opetaia the conditions seemed to be part of the preparation.<\/p>\n

I asked strength and conditioning coach Mark Mathie whether training in the Phuket heat added anything to Jai\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Jai, it\u2019s all mental,\u201d Mathie told me. \u201cYou get to a certain level in boxing where it\u2019s all mental, and our goal is to push him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tap puts an even greater number on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour mindset is 95 per cent of it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can have all the talent in the world, be great at everything, but if your mindset doesn\u2019t follow what your body\u2019s doing, it will just fall apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like having a nice-looking car with a bad engine in it. It won\u2019t go anywhere. It looks good, but it won\u2019t go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked if that was why they pushed his son so hard in camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to break yourself and mentally be prepared for the worst,\u201d Tap said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t know how to swim, you\u2019ll drown.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next week, I would get a closer look at what he meant.<\/p>\n

My route into the camp had started with a text from Hutchinson.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi Wasim, Jai Opetaia is coming to Phuket for a camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hutchinson has been based on the island for more than a decade and recently opened Donegal Den. Perhaps I shouldn\u2019t have been too surprised by his message. Thailand had recently hosted a Tyson Fury fight night in Pattaya, while Fury himself had also chosen the country for parts of his recent training camps.<\/p>\n

Now Opetaia was heading south to Phuket.<\/p>\n

I booked a ticket from Bangkok and made my way to the island, where I would spend a week around the team as they prepared for Noel Mikaelian on September 12.<\/a><\/p>\n

As the week went on, the method behind the camp became clearer.<\/p>\n

One session saw Opetaia work 12 rounds of pads with three different pad holders, four rounds with each.<\/p>\n

Hutchinson worked with the power shield and encouraged Opetaia to sit on his punches. Mathie pushed the conditioning, while Tap slowed things down and corrected the technical details.<\/p>\n

Each pad holder had a different role in the session, allowing the team to work on different areas as the rounds and fatigue accumulated.<\/p>\n

\"OpetaiaImage credit: Wasim Mather<\/p>\n

Joining Jai in camp was his younger brother Elvis, who went through the sessions alongside him.<\/p>\n

There were also small things I started to notice as the week went on.<\/p>\n

During some of the harder periods on the heavy bag, Opetaia would start talking to himself. Sometimes he would swear, particularly when the work became difficult.<\/p>\n

Tap had noticed the habit long before I had.<\/p>\n

Having trained his son throughout his career, I asked him what Jai looks like when he is genuinely struggling in training.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very mentally strong,\u201d Tap said. \u201cHe talks to himself. Any time he gets uncomfortable he\u2019ll go, \u2018Fuck you,\u2019 and starts swearing at himself. He gets angry.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked whether Jai would agree with that assessment.<\/p>\n

Tap laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea behind the camp was not complicated. Team Opetaia wanted difficult situations in training to become familiar.<\/p>\n

A boxing camp gives a fighter a certain amount of control. Opponents can be studied, rounds can be counted and mistakes can be corrected. If something is not working, the team can go back into the gym and work on it again.<\/p>\n

A fighter\u2019s career does not always work the same way.<\/p>\n

For years, becoming undisputed cruiserweight champion has been Opetaia\u2019s goal. Despite continuing to win inside the ring, the route towards it has become increasingly complicated.<\/p>\n

In March, the IBF withdrew its sanction for Opetaia\u2019s fight with Brandon Glanton after it became clear that the newly created Zuffa Boxing cruiserweight title would also be contested. Opetaia went ahead with the fight and comfortably outpointed Glanton over 12 rounds, but was subsequently stripped of his IBF title.<\/p>\n

The WBC situation has added another complication.<\/p>\n

In May, the sanctioning body ordered its cruiserweight champion Noel Mikaelian to defend against David Benavidez, whose move into the division immediately changed the picture at the top. Mikaelian instead moved forward with the September 12 fight against Opetaia.<\/p>\n

For Tap, it is another example of how much of a boxer\u2019s career can be decided outside the ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of politics you can\u2019t talk about or get people involved in,\u201d he said. \u201cThe cruiserweight division is not very popular like other divisions. So they need big names to sort of bring it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benavidez is one of those names.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe WBC want to say, \u2018Look who we\u2019ve got as a cruiserweight,\u2019 meanwhile we\u2019ve been struggling to get where we\u2019re at now,\u201d Tap said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much politics in this. We have no control, so we just do our thing. Whoever they put in front of us, we will fight anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tap believes another fighter holding the WBC title could actually make Opetaia\u2019s pursuit of undisputed more difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they get the WBC belt, that gives them more reason not to fight Jai,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ll say, \u2018What have you got? Why would I fight you for a Zuffa belt? What is a Zuffa belt? No one has even heard of a Zuffa belt.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll use this as an excuse. \u2018We\u2019ve got these, what have you got?\u2019 And the only option we can give them is money. We have nothing else to offer them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IBF situation remains another source of frustration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey took the IBF off us. The lawyers are taking care of that,\u201d Tap said. \u201cWill it come back to us? I don\u2019t think so. There\u2019s talks of other people fighting for the title.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite that frustration, the belts have not lost their importance to the family.<\/p>\n

\"OpetaiaImage credit: Wasim Mather<\/p>\n

I asked Tap whether everything that had happened had changed what a world title actually meant to him and his son.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, not really,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we started. These belts hold weight. Since he was a kid he\u2019s been watching it. Since I was a kid I\u2019ve been watching it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fighters can become frustrated with the organisations behind the belts while still spending their careers chasing what those belts represent. For Opetaia, walking away now would mean leaving part of the job unfinished.<\/p>\n

During one of the strength and conditioning sessions later in the week, the conversation turned to Benavidez.<\/p>\n

Tap believed a fight between the two could potentially happen early next year.<\/p>\n

As Jai continued training, Tap reached for his phone and pulled up a video that had been circulating of Benavidez working on a heavy bag in oversized clothes.<\/p>\n

We watched the video and spoke about what a fight between the two might look like.<\/p>\n

Benavidez was not the man Opetaia was preparing for in Phuket, but Team Opetaia were clearly keeping an eye on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, 100 per cent, that fight will skyrocket us to the next level if it does happen,\u201d Tap said. \u201cI\u2019m sure it will be for the unification and then we\u2019ll move up to heavyweight because our plan is to go up to heavyweight. But we have unfinished business here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heavyweight has been part of the plan for some time. With all the difficulties surrounding the cruiserweight titles, Tap admitted there had been a point when he wondered whether they should simply stop chasing them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI even said to Jai, \u2018Maybe we just leave it and go,\u2019\u201d Tap recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018Listen Dad, we won\u2019t leave it like that just because of politics. Let\u2019s finish what we started.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That conversation explains why Opetaia remains at cruiserweight. Moving to heavyweight would offer a new challenge, but there is still something he wants to complete first.<\/p>\n

Benavidez could eventually provide the fight Team Opetaia have been looking for.<\/p>\n

When I asked what he thought his son brought that Benavidez had not seen before, Tap pointed towards Jai\u2019s skill level, power and movement.<\/p>\n

But that is a discussion for another fight.<\/p>\n

The man directly in front of Opetaia is Mikaelian.<\/p>\n

For all the talk during the week about Benavidez<\/a>, heavyweight and the remaining cruiserweight titles, Tap was quick to make clear that nobody in camp was looking past September 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone that we fight is dangerous. We don\u2019t overlook anyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go with a plan, we tick all the boxes. Mark, the strength and conditioning coach, does his job. I do my boxing stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anything, it\u2019s all about respect. Respect the sport, respect the athletes. They\u2019re going through the same struggle, trying to feed their families.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe concentrate on what we have to do. Who\u2019s next? Then move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of the week, I had watched the routine repeat itself. Running, heavy bags, pads, strength and conditioning and sparring. On some days, the team trained three times.<\/p>\n

Through most of it, Tap was never far away.<\/p>\n

Before I left, I asked him what he hoped he and his son would remember when all of this was eventually finished. Not the belts or the wins, but the years they had spent doing it together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just love what we\u2019re doing,\u201d he said. \u201cWe grew up with it. It\u2019s been in our families for generations. We were born into it. It\u2019s been in our blood for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a crazy journey. We keep going because this is what we were supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are still things Team Opetaia cannot decide for themselves. They cannot force another champion into the ring, and whether Benavidez happens next year or Opetaia gets the opportunity to become undisputed remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

For now, the focus is Mikaelian and September 12.<\/p>\n

By the final days of my week in Phuket, the routine around the gym had become familiar. Opetaia was back on the heavy bag with Tap watching nearby and calling out instructions. As the session became harder, Jai started talking to himself again and continued working.<\/p>\n

It brought me back to something Tap had told me earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to break yourself and mentally be prepared for the worst. If you don\u2019t know how to swim, you\u2019ll drown.\u201d<\/p>\n

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