You couldn't have scripted it.
The man who at 16 years of age became Australia's youngest boxing Olympian is now, 11 years later, Australia's only current male boxing world champion.
Five years to the day since Jeff Horn scored a huge upset win over Manny Pacquiao, Jai Opetaia added his name to the list of great practitioners of the sweet science to hail from Australia.
To get there though, he had to show bravery and grit beyond anything many greats ever experienced in a ring.
In the dressing room after earning a unanimous points victory over Mairis Briedis on the Gold Coast on Saturday night, Opetaia could barely talk on account of his jaw having been broken in two places — the first break coming in the second round.
The new IBF cruiserweight world champion, who wept in the ring when his arm was raised, was only able to mumble that he was "happy" after the fight.
"I've done it," he added before saying he could talk no longer.
Physically unable to talk beyond that, his manager Michael Francis, took up the narrative.
"No-one will ever do it ever again in the history of the sport," Francis said of Opetaia's courage to keep going despite suffering such a brutal and debilitating — not to mention painful — injury.
Dean Lonergan, Opetaia's promoter, likened his fighter battling on with a broken jaw to Muhammad Ali — although The Greatest actually lost when similarly encumbered against Ken Norton.
"That was probably the best performance by an Australian boxer, ever," Lonergan said.
"We should be celebrating this kid for a long time."
So what happens next?
First up, Opetaia will need surgery on his jaw.
After that, the options are more varied.
Briedis, magnanimous in defeat and sporting a broken nose, a heavily marked face and, somewhat incongruously, a beaming smile, came into the dressing room to congratulate the new champion.
Holding court with the assembled media, Briedis said he had not been well during the lead-up to the fight and asked for an immediate rematch.
"I hope I come back," Briedis said.
Britain's WBO champion, Lawrence Okolie, has also been in contact via Twitter, requesting a unification fight.
Tweeting prolifically during the contest from London, Okolie simply tweeted, "Well done Jai," followed by an emoji of a plane taking off, once Opetaia's victory had been confirmed.
He followed it up with a more explicit demand for a fight.
"He's gotta enjoy [the] belts but OMG, what a fight had just been set up," he wrote.
"Imma show Briedis how it's f***ing done."
That Okolie should want to face Opetaia is no surprise — the Londoner has been vocal about wanting to unify the cruiserweight division before moving up to heavyweight.
The 29-year-old — whose rise from clinically obese burger-joint employee to Rio Olympian is the stuff of dreams — is unbeaten in 18 fights.
He is a frightening prospect too, with the dimensions (196cm tall, 210cm reach) of a heavyweight.
And despite looking ungainly and awkward in his early fights, he clearly possesses power, having earned 14 knockouts so far in his career.
Okolie is part of Eddie Hearn's Matchroom stable of fighters, meaning any unification fight has the potential to take place on a massively lucrative show in London.
Although, as Hearn has recently expanded his promotional behemoth into Australia, with its first event taking place on the Gold Coast in September, perhaps a fight Down Under is not off the cards.
However, it would possibly run the risk of seeing Opetaia repeating the mistakes made by Jeff Horn and more recently, George Kambosos, who both surrendered their hard-won titles by arguably biting off more than they could chew in fights against Terence Crawford and Devin Haney respectively.
The fact that the cruiserweight division struggles for traction in the bloated boxing landscape, dwarfed by the heavyweights and the lower weight classes dominated by high-profile Americans, means that to capitalise fully on this victory, Opetaia needs those high-profile contests though.
Potentially more attractive are the other two cruiserweight champions, Ilinga Makabu of the Congo (WBC) and French-Armenian fighter Arsen Goulamirian (WBA), who perhaps better illustrate the division's relative lack of depth.
Regardless, Opetaia has some time to enjoy his victory before worrying about what's next.
