{"id":647775,"date":"2026-05-03T22:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T22:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/647775\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T22:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T22:40:10","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-vs-rico-verhoeven-tickets-go-on-sale-for-may-23-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/647775\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk Vs Rico Verhoeven Tickets Go On Sale For May 23 Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=boxing247.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" style=\"display:flex; align-items:center; justify-content:center;&#010;            width:140px; height:40px; overflow:hidden;\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"660\" height=\"208\" alt=\"Add East Side Boxing as a preferred source on Google\" class=\"perfmatters-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/google.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>  <a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqKAgKIiJDQklTRXdnTWFnOEtEV0p2ZUdsdVp6STBOeTVqYjIwb0FBUAE?ceid=US:en&amp;oc=3&amp;hl=en-US&amp;gl=US\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" style=\"display:flex; align-items:center; justify-content:center;&#010;            width:140px; height:40px; overflow:hidden;\"><br \/>\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"468\" height=\"128\" alt=\"Follow East Side Boxing on Google News\" style=\"height:100%; width:auto; display:block;\" class=\"perfmatters-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/follow-google-news.png\"\/><br \/>\n  <\/a> <\/p>\n<p>The undercard includes Hamzah Sheeraz against Alem Begic for the vacant WBO super middleweight title. Sheeraz returns following his stoppage win over Edgar Berlanga in his last outing.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, Jack Catterall faces Shakhram Giyasov for the WBA regular title. Frank Sanchez meets Richard Torrez Jr. in a heavyweight bout involving regional belts.<\/p>\n<p>In the women\u2019s division, Mizuki Hiruta defends her Ring and WBO titles against Mai Soliman. Hiruta enters the fight on a six-fight title defense run.<\/p>\n<p>Additional bouts include Daniel Lapin defending intercontinental light heavyweight belts against Benjamin Mendes Tani, and Basem Mamdouh taking on Jamar Talley.<\/p>\n<p>The card also features appearances from Saudi prospect Sultan Almohammed and local Egyptian fighters, with additional matchups expected to be confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>From a traditional U.S. promotional standpoint, Usyk-Rico is a bit of a head-scratcher. Rico Verhoeven is a certified legend in Europe, specifically in the Netherlands, and the kickboxing world, but you\u2019re right that he has zero name recognition with the casual American boxing fan.<\/p>\n<p>Even with Usyk being the unified king, he\u2019s always been more of a \u201cconnoisseur\u2019s favorite\u201d than a massive pay-per-view (PPV) engine in the States.<\/p>\n<p>DAZN is reportedly pricing this at $59.99 in the U.S. Asking fans to pay that for a crossover fight where the opponent has one pro boxing match (from 2014) is a big ask. Many are already calling it \u201chigh-budget sparring.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Verhoeven has reigned over GLORY Kickboxing for over a decade, that doesn\u2019t translate to PPV buys in a different sport. Without a \u201cvillain\u201d or a massive American star, the casual audience usually tunes out.<\/p>\n<p>Although the Sheeraz vs. Begic and Sanchez vs. Torrez Jr. are great fights for people like us who live and breathe the sport, they aren\u2019t A-side names that convince a casual fan to drop sixty bucks.<\/p>\n<p>With Turki Alalshikh and the Saudi General Entertainment Authority behind this, the traditional \u201cbreak-even\u201d math for a boxing card goes out the window.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The undercard includes Hamzah Sheeraz against Alem Begic for the vacant WBO super middleweight title. Sheeraz returns following&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-647775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}