Last month, Rico Verhoeven came agonisingly close to shocking the world and becoming the most inexperienced world champion in boxing history. Upon reflection, Verhoeven has assessed the skills of heavyweight ruler, Oleksandr Usyk, whom he almost dethroned.
Verhoeven boasted just the solitary professional bout ahead of last month’s challenge for Usyk’s WBC crown, with that bout coming all the way back in 2014, prior to Verhoeven becoming a legend in the sport of kickboxing.
As a result, if able to pull off an unbelievable upset, Verhoeven would have trumped the efforts of Saensak Muangsurin and Vasyl Lomachenko, who each claimed world honours in their third professional bouts, to become the first male boxer to pick up a world title within two contests.
In the fight, Verhoeven came extremely close, with his efforts believed by many fans to have warranted a clear lead on the scorecards, until he was controversially halted in round 11.
Recalling that night in an interview with Ring Magazine, Verhoeven recognised that Usyk is ‘an amazing fighter’, but declared that he ‘did not show him anything that he had not seen before’.
“My trainer [Peter Fury] told me before, ‘he is not going to show you something that you haven’t seen before’ – and he was correct, because he is an amazing fighter, he is a super accomplished fighter, but he didn’t show me something that I didn’t see before.
“I knew that he was going to be smart, agile and fast.”
Continuing, Verhoeven remained hopeful of securing a second shot at Usyk’s belts, with Turki Al-Alshikh having confirmed his interest in staging a second showdown.
“His Excellency told me that he wants to see the rematch because he was like, ‘you were ahead, you were winning and then this happens and the referee jumps in, it doesn’t make any sense!’. So, let’s see what happens.”
Despite Verhoeven’s aspirations to challenge once more, Usyk could instead take on undefeated German, Agit Kabayel, in his next outing.