Rico Verhoeven can do a great number of things better than Oleksandr Usyk.
He can, for one, kick better than Oleksandr Usyk, whether aiming the kick at a bag or a human being. He can also speak better English than Usyk, hence his becoming the de facto promoter of last night’s boxing match between the pair in Giza, Egypt.
He stands two inches taller than Usyk, blessed as he is by Dutch genes, and has a better heavyweight frame than Usyk. On the scales, he is heavier than Usyk, and on Friday was heavier than him by some 25 pounds. He has, by half an inch, longer arms and a better reach than Usyk.
If we stick with the numbers, Verhoeven is, at 37, younger than Usyk by two years, so has the better shelf life. Better yet, he has, at 37, managed to win more professional fights than Usyk and has achieved this feat in more than just one discipline. He is therefore, when it comes to multi-tasking, considerably better than Usyk. He has more strings to his bow than Usyk and more ways to win a fight than Usyk.
His physique is also better than Usyk’s. His jawline is better than Usyk’s. His teeth are better than Usyk’s. His chances of landing film roles, or dates with women with a fondness for fighters, are better than Usyk’s. He has better connections in Hollywood than Usyk and counts Jason Statham, the matchmaker for his bout with Usyk, as a personal friend. In boxing, Usyk’s sport, Verhoeven gets along better with the Furys than Usyk. He sparred Tyson and was taught by Peter. He is supposedly all the better for both experiences.
As a kickboxer, he has better knowledge of the films of Jean-Claude Van Damme than Usyk. As a Dutchman, he also has better access to the works of Van Gogh. He looks better in orange. He is likely a better cyclist and can perform a better Cruyff turn than Usyk. He has seen better windmills than Usyk, and no doubt more of them, and would have a better eye for picking flowers, especially tulips.
Had they been friends, Verhoeven may even have given some to Usyk during their date in front of the pyramids last night. But instead, the odd couple were opponents. Not only that, Verhoeven and Usyk met in a boxing ring, the one area of life in which we knew with a degree of certainty that Verhoeven had no edge on Usyk. Anywhere else and he might have stood a chance, but in the boxing ring, where he had fought only once, Verhoeven was inferior to Usyk in every single regard. There, in Usyk’s domain, the Ukrainian had a better jab, a better cross, a better hook, and a better uppercut. He also had better power, better speed, a better chin, better stamina, better footwork, and better credentials.
Despite all that, to confirm what we already knew, we needed to see it, apparently. We needed there to be a temporary boxing arena erected in front of the pyramids for the purpose of proving something we already considered fact: Oleksandr Usyk, the world heavyweight champion, is a better professional boxer than Rico Verhoeven, a one-bout novice.
Beforehand, there were a couple of upsets in Giza, which gave people hope of some sort of shock or miracle in the main event. However, the architects of those earlier upsets, Benjamin Mendes Tani and Frank Sanchez, had something Verhoeven, the underdog in the main event, lacked: experience in a boxing ring. Simply put, there were underdogs and then there were underdogs.
In the case of Usyk vs. Verhoeven, this was a little different than your usual boxing mismatch. In fact, only Francis Ngannou’s surprisingly decent effort against Tyson Fury in 2023 made last night’s heavyweight fight remotely feasible/watchable, even as something to just throw on and let play in the background.
Verhoeven was never going to win, we knew that much, but Ngannou had, rather inconveniently, shown us that interlopers and neophytes can still do damage if they can make a fist and extend their arm. Because of that performance against Fury, the door remains open and we continue to fall for these mismatches and wonder “what if –?” We all watched Ngannou’s second pro boxing match against Anthony Joshua, for example, and watched it end the way some will say Ngannou’s first should have ended. We then watched Joshua mess around with Jake Paul, an influencer turned cruiserweight, just because Paul talks a good fight, and because he needs shutting up, and because he can make a fist and extend his arm. Really, you just never know, do you?
Even the things you think you do know can mean something else when given fresh context. Verhoeven’s size, for instance, was just a matter of numbers on a page until we saw its impact in the ring last night. The same goes for his lack of experience and his ungainliness, for that too was seen as one thing before the fight and another thing during the fight, particularly when in the presence of someone so textbook and correct.
Usyk was better than Verhoeven, yes, but often there is more to a fight than just being better. From as early as round one we saw evidence of this on Saturday. We saw Verhoeven, a large man with a rich fighting pedigree, use his limitations as weapons to surprise Usyk, the perfectionist, by doing everything wrong; or if not wrong, a little different. There were right hands launched from strange angles and at odd times and then rather than cower, or retreat out of respect, Verhoeven would just keep coming forward, even during moments when Usyk looked to either reset or rest. That alone marked him out as different from all the opponents Usyk had battled in the past. Not better, no, but different.
In round one it was clear this difference had shocked Usyk – tagged by two right hands, one to the head and one to the body – whereas in round two he started to adjust to his new normal. In that round he managed to land a nice uppercut and cross from his southpaw stance and began to flow a bit more. There was a sense, at that stage, that he was playing with Verhoeven, pulling his punches somewhat. Yet it is just as possible that we tell ourselves things like that in order to cope with the uncanny.
In reality, Verhoeven was not the type of fighter with whom you play. He was, after all, 25 pounds heavier than Usyk and knew how to use this advantage, make it count. Whenever in clinches, or up close, he was happy to manhandle Usyk and then, when he let his shots go, one could feel the weight behind them. Even if the punches weren’t always thrown correctly, enough force was being generated by those thick wrists of Verhoeven to keep Usyk honest and reduce the chances of him playing or relaxing. By round four, in fact, Usyk was serious, all business. No longer was he content to ease his way into the fight, or attempt to figure Verhoeven out. Instead, he planned to now catch the kickboxer with something heavy and get this thing over and done with before it potentially became a problem.
In pursuit of that goal, he nailed Verhoeven with a left uppercut which wobbled Verhoeven’s legs. He then immediately jumped on him, looking for the finish, though was reminded again of Verhoeven’s size when he soon found himself pushed away and smothered on the ropes.
It wasn’t just a size issue, either. Verhoeven was tough – really tough. Only in round four, and later in rounds 10 and 11, was he ever remotely troubled by one of Usyk’s counterpunches – a right hook here, a left cross there. They tended to be sporadic, these counterpunches, for the simple reason that Usyk was never quite sure when or where to throw them. Just as he felt the time was right, Verhoeven would shift on him, change the angle, or move either his shoulders or hands or head in a way Usyk had never seen before. By the time Usyk then understood what was happening, the moment had passed. Now it was Verhoeven throwing his hands at him.
This pattern continued through the fight’s middle rounds as those at ringside and at home started to think the unthinkable. In Verhoeven they saw no signs of him slowing down, while in Usyk there were no signs of him working anything out. In fact, there were indications in rounds seven, eight and nine of Usyk looking tired, or unprepared, or simply old. His head was knocked back by several jarring right hands and it appeared for all the world as if Usyk was now banking on landing one big counter shot to spare his blushes. It seemed frankly absurd, that thought. After all, it was Verhoeven we deemed the fighter with a puncher’s chance – if that – before the first bell, only now it was Usyk, the master boxer, in need of something dramatic.
It almost arrived in round 10, when Usyk rocked Verhoeven with a left cross which gifted Verhoeven a small welt on the right side of his face. Crucially, though, Verhoeven smirked upon taking it and had no issue dealing with Usyk’s subsequent attempt to end what had, for Usyk, become an awkward and embarrassing exercise.
With two rounds still to go, Verhoeven had, in a sense, already won. He had lasted much longer than many of us had predicted, he had banked rounds, and some even had him ahead on their scorecard after 10. All he had to do, according to these people, was stay upright, keep the referee out of it, and continue to upset the rhythm and timing of a boxer much better than him. Do that and it didn’t matter if Usyk was better than him at boxing. Verhoeven would win. He would then, by winning, show that it is one thing to be a better boxer than someone but it is something else to be a better fighter.
To prove that was the case, Verhoeven had to take risks. This he had done from the very outset, of course, and he continued in this vein in round 11, a round most assumed he would never see. Indeed, it was in the latter stages of the 11th that the challenger finally stumbled into one of the many traps Usyk had been setting and realised he had only when a right uppercut caused his legs to fold beneath him. Suddenly, for all his fine work, Verhoeven was down on his knees, head through the ropes. Suddenly he had discovered the key difference between being the better fighter and the better boxer.
It was, for Usyk, the punch he had been eager to find since the start; the sort of punch only he and not Verhoeven could execute. It was short, it was accurate, and it was devastating. The second it landed the course of the fight changed and the only question now was whether Usyk, the patient counterpuncher, would be able to rush Verhoeven and finish the fight in the 10 seconds remaining in the round.
To buy himself more, Verhoeven spat out his mouthpiece, knowing it would have to be reinserted. He hoped that by spitting it out enough time could be killed, but Usyk, it turned out, didn’t need much. Whether he had seconds or minutes, he was desperate to now stop the fight and so too was the referee, Mark Lyson. This became apparent when Usyk’s follow-up flurry was judged sufficient to end Verhoeven’s challenge at the exact moment they all heard the bell to end round 11.
It was, as far as interventions go, a triple save. It saved Verhoeven from the inevitable in round 12, it saved Usyk from possible humiliation, and it saved boxing – his sport – from the same.
“It was a good fight,” Usyk said afterwards, keen to talk about everything but the fight. “Thank you, God; thank you so much.”
As well as gratitude, those were words of relief. Because the truth is, despite his undeniable genius, Usyk, 25-0 (16 KOs), had gone and done what they warn you not to do: he had fucked around and found out. He had chanced his arm in a dumb crossover fight and almost paid the price for either not knowing what he was getting into or not knowing how to deal with it.
However the experiment was viewed, Usyk was not prepared for it, physically or mentally, and he now leaves Egypt with not only a significant payday but, according to Turki Alalshikh, a significant rival. He wants to see the fight again, Alalshikh, and perhaps he will get his way. Perhaps, by taking a pointless fight which he receives no credit for winning, Usyk has now got himself into a situation he could have ideally done without. Perhaps, on reflection, there were much better options than Rico Verhoeven for title defence number six.
