The date is Nov. 28, 2015, and Jai Opetaia is 3-0 as a professional boxer after beating Randall Rayment on points in a six-rounder.

To call the fight inconspicuous would be an understatement. It took place at the Mansfield Tavern, a pub in Brisbane, Australia, and the pair were even uncustomarily seated next to each other at the fight week press conference, for there was no rivalry, no bad blood and no table big enough to place them on opposite ends.

Though Opetaia walked away that night with the victory, it was during that particular fight The Ring and IBF cruiserweight champion believes he broke his left hand, something which would threaten to end his career years down the line.

Surgery would cost thousands of dollars and Opetaia, as he puts it, was "broke."

"I fought with a broken hand for five, six years," he tells The Ring. "I would look at my hand and think 'I gotta fix this'. Me and my old man would be driving home from sparring, broke as anything, we just had nothing working for us, nothing working in our favour ... We actually had conversations about 'Should we give it up? Should I sign up to the local footy instead?'

"I'd have time off and then come back and then time off, we were broke, we didn't have the money to get surgeries for our hands back then, so we just had to roll with it. So we stayed with it, we've been through so many make-or-break situations, even coming back from my broken jaw, it was broken on both sides and I was eating soups and noodles for four months. I was eating noodles and my jaw wasn't healing."

So Opetaia fought on. With three generations of fighting blood behind him, quitting the sport was only to be a meandering thought, never a serious proposition.

"The Opetaia name is serious to me, this is a lifetime of dedication," he adds. "I was swinging off bags at 7 years old, I was just in the gym, training every day, my school homework was watching other fights. I'm honestly not here to become friends with everyone. At the same time, I'm not here to make enemies. I'm there to get a job done. I'm here to fight, get paid and go back to my family so we can live a better life. My last name is everything to me and it's passed down, it's not mine, it's a name passed down over generations."

Opetaia's 3-0 record turned to 20-0. He fought 17 times without regularly throwing power left hands from the southpaw stance. "Straight left, straight left, straight left — it was more death by a thousand cuts."

Only once the COVID-19 pandemic hit did Opetaia (27-0, 21 KOs) finally elect to have surgery, the recovery for which was brutal.

"I got a surgery before the [Mairis] Briedis fight," Opetaia adds. "I was in a cast, a hand cast for about nine months. I got up to about 117 kilos [257 pounds], fat slob, I wasn't training, and then I remember my first session back ... I swear, I punched the bag for about two rounds, a little warm up, then I went and sat on the block and I was like 'My career's over, how could I let myself go?'

"It was a pretty tough time for me, it was a long road back, just lots of hard work, lots of chasing pain, lots of pushing yourself, making yourself uncomfortable and now I'm here. I fell down those spirals but mentally and physically pulled myself out of them. If that doesn't break me, I feel like nothing can, so let's go."

Opetaia's hand, seven years after his fight with Rayment, would finally heal. He demolished a journeyman in three rounds at the end of 2021 before being facing Briedis, The Ring and IBF champion, who he beat by unanimous decision despite a double jaw-break in the 10th round.

Since then he's sandwiched a rematch victory over Briedis between four destructive knockout wins against a Who's Who of Brit contenders and New Zealand's David Nyika.

Opetaia has made no secret of his desperation to compete in unification fights, with the ultimate aim to become the undisputed champion at cruiserweight before a lucrative move up to heavyweight. Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez, the WBA and WBO champion, has business to deal with against Yuniel Dorticos on June 28 in Anaheim, California.

WBC champion Badou Jack has just been ordered to rematch Noel Mikaelian after controversially beating the German by majority decision last month.

Opetaia is hell-bent on getting those big fights but he must first take on Italian Claudio Squeo on Sunday at Queensland's Gold Coast Exhibition Centre.

Just as he has been in at least 25 of his 27 fights, Opetaia is a heavy favourite and you'd be more than hard-pressed to find boxing fans, pundits or writers who give Squeo a chance.

Opetaia won't be taking any chances, however.

"I'm taking this fight very seriously," he says. "This guy's got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Fighters like him, they just have power and they're ugly to deal with. Like a little bull that comes forward, they're dangerous. I'm a realist. I've been boxing a long time, the second you switch off is the second you get caught, so I only blow him out of the water if I perform properly and treat him like a serious, serious world title fight, which I have been.

"I do what it takes to win. I feel like I can adapt to so many different styles. You look at my last fight with Nyika, it was an absolute brawl. You look at the fight before that [against Briedis], it was a full-on clinic. We pick and choose our battles and we fight smart. We pressure when we need to pressure and we counter when we need to counter.

"I train too hard and I prepare too well to slip up. I'm chasing undisputed, that's my goal, so none of it is possible if I lose."