JRE MMA Show #183 with Rico Verhoeven

Rico Verhoeven, the longtime Glory heavyweight kickboxing champion, walked into his boxing debut against the undefeated unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk and won ten rounds. Then he got stopped in the ninth. The stoppage, and the judges’ scorecards that had the fight even, remain the central, unresolved wound of the conversation.

The fight that was and the fight that wasn't

Verhoeven’s game plan was built on a simple observation: every orthodox boxer moves to the right against a southpaw, walking straight into Usyk’s power hand. So Verhoeven moved left. He used his size—260 lean pounds—to smother Usyk, throwing volume rather than hunting a single knockout. “Don’t try and hit him in the first two or three punches,” he explained. “Throw them, so we have something to look at and something to think about. And then we’re gonna get there.” By the time he got inside, Usyk had to deal with constant pressure and body work. Verhoeven’s trainer, Peter Fury, had drilled him into a proper boxing stance for six months, and it worked. Verhoeven was ahead on every expert’s card.