Huseyin Cinkara’s one-shot knockout loss to Jai Opetaia this past weekend was just as damaging as it looked, as Mike Coppinger reports that the 40-year-old challenger “will be hospitalized for at least two days after suffering a brain contusion, small brain bleed and fractured C1 vertebra.”
That’s, thankfully, a significantly better prognosis than we usually hear for injuries of this nature.
Cinkara (23-1, 19 KO) actually did a fair bit better than expected, rocking the heavily favored Opetaia (29-0,
23 KO) in the second round and causing significant facial swelling before running out of steam and succumbing to a monster left hand in the eighth. Early reporting indicated that Opetaia had suffered a fractured eye socket, jeopardizing a planned early-2026 unification bout against the winner of Badou Jack’s rematch with Noel Mikaelian this coming Saturday, but Tasman Fighters’ Mick Francis tells Coppinger that Opetaia “has been cleared of any injuries.”
Hopefully Cinkara gets a similarly clean bill of health and can return home within the next week.
