Rico Verhoeven chooses Usyk fight over UFC move, vows to shock the world. Rico Verhoeven explains why he chose boxing Oleksandr Usyk over UFC offer, plans to ‘shock the world’.
Verhoeven who dominated kickboxing for over a decade, is now preparing for arguably the biggest challenge of his combat sports career when he faces Usyk for the WBC heavyweight boxing title at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. According to Verhoeven, the UFC made him a legitimate offer to transition into MMA after he became one of combat sports’ biggest free agents. The Dutch striker admitted he strongly considered the move, especially because of his long-standing relationship with UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall, whom he has trained with in the past.
However, Verhoeven ultimately decided that a boxing showdown with Usyk represented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to elevate his legacy beyond kickboxing. The 37-year-old revealed that talks initially centered around a possible fight with former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua before circumstances changed and negotiations shifted toward Usyk instead.
“It’s been one hell of a ride, I can tell you that,” Verhoeven told MMA Fighting. “I really felt like my GLORY contract was coming to an end and I was like we did it all. Kickboxing, it was just played out. From there on, we just started looking around and seeing what other opportunities were there. We were looking at UFC, we were looking at a big crossover in boxing and both options were on the table. The boxing opportunity looked more interesting so that’s the road we took.”
Verhoeven was excited about the possibility of facing Joshua, but those plans changed after Joshua was involved in a tragic car accident in Nigeria that claimed the lives of two of his friends With Joshua stepping away from competition following the incident, Verhoeven shifted focus and began pursuing the idea of a fight against Oleksandr Usyk instead.
“I was in Spain for training camp for that specific fight,” Verhoeven explained. “I just continued camp, came back to the gym, discussed with the team like ‘yo guys, this is the update, what can we do?’ Maybe we could fight somebody else? But who? Who do we want to fight? I don’t know and then my trainer Peter Fury said ‘what about Oleksandr Usyk?’ Yeah, why not? I think it’s a great idea. It makes sense. Undisputed kickboxer against undisputed boxer. I think there’s a story there. So we discussed it, we loved the idea and I said let me talk to them, present it and let them know I have an idea. “I just hear ‘I love it.’ Yes! Let me talk to Usyk and let’s go from there. I think a week and a half goes by, calls me back, ‘I talked to him, he said he’s down for it, he loves it as well.’ What? OK, let’s go! The rest is history.”
While Verhoeven is widely regarded as one of the greatest heavyweight kickboxers ever, the transition into elite-level boxing is a massive gamble. Usyk enters the fight unbeaten as a professional boxer with a 24-0 record and victories over elite names such as Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, and Daniel Dubois. By comparison, Verhoeven has only one professional boxing bout on his résumé dating back to 2014. Despite that, Verhoeven remains confident that his years of striking experience and unconventional style can create problems Usyk has never dealt with before.
“I love it,” Verhoeven said. “The bigger the challenge, the better. For me, I don’t feel like I have to defend myself. The thing is people do not know the story. They don’t know who I am. They don’t know my back story. I’ve been with the Fury’s for over 15 years already. How could they know? It is always so easy because everything and everyone gets put into boxes. My box is the kickboxing box. Rico, that’s your box. You’ve been a champion, you did that amazing but stay in that box. Why? I like to think outside of the box.
“I like to box. I like MMA. I like acting. I like to try stuff. Sometimes you try something and you’re like nah, that wasn’t for me. But at least I tried. With this, I’ve been boxing for such a long time. For me, it just made sense and then fighting right away for the WBC world championship, makes it even bigger and even better.” “The target has been on my back as long as I can remember,” Verhoeven said. “The target is not on my back this time. I can cause for an upset. I can cause for a surprise.
“I’m going to bring something to the table that he hasn’t seen before. I’m going to move and I’m going to do things and I’m going to attack in a certain way that boxers just simply don’t do.” “I’m jumping into this and I’m giving it everything that I have got,” Verhoeven said. “It’s going to be one hell of a fight. I’m ready to shock the world. I think it’s time to find out who is the baddest man on the planet. So after I beat Oleksandr Usyk, let’s see who’s next. Because I’m ready to find out.”
For Verhoeven, this is more than just boxing. After ruling the kickboxing world for years, he now has a chance to test himself against one of the best heavyweight boxers of this generation in a fight that many believe is nearly impossible to win. But rather than taking the safer path into MMA through the UFC, Verhoeven chose the biggest risk possible.
Now, all eyes turn to Egypt to see whether the Dutch kickboxing legend can truly shock the world against one of boxing’s pound-for-pound greats.
