{"id":655024,"date":"2026-05-07T07:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655024\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T07:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:24:17","slug":"rico-verhoeven-is-no-joke-ex-heavyweight-champ-boxing-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/655024\/","title":{"rendered":"Rico Verhoeven is &#8216;no Joke&#8217; \u2014 ex-Heavyweight Champ | Boxing News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The former heavyweight boxing world champion, Andy Ruiz Jr., praised Rico Verhoeven ahead of the kickboxing icon\u2019s world title clash against Oleksandr Usyk at the Pyramids of Giza later this month. <\/p>\n<p>A pound-for-pound staple for years, Usyk cleared out the cruiserweight division, has lapped the super heavyweights, and takes part in his first novelty fight on May 23 atop a Spencer Brown and Eddie Hearn card on a DAZN pay-per-view.<\/p>\n<p>For Ruiz, Verhoven is \u201cno joke\u201d because of his considerable combat experience. Regardless, he still expects Usyk to triumph.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUsyk should win,\u201d he told <a href=\"http:\/\/casino.org\/us\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Casino<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s an experienced fighter. He\u2019s the champion. He\u2019s the undisputed heavyweight champion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I heard a lot of people saying for him to be careful against Verhoeven.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Often described as the gold standard of heavyweight kickboxing, Verhoeven ruled the division for more than a decade through a blend of technical precision, volume punching, elite conditioning, and ring IQ. <\/p>\n<p>The Dutchman became the long-reigning GLORY heavyweight champion by defeating a generation of contenders including\u00a0Badr Hari,\u00a0Jamal Ben Saddik, and\u00a0Artem Vakhitov. <\/p>\n<p>Verhoeven fights behind a disciplined jab, relentless pace, and measured aggression rather than one-shot chaos, making him one of combat sports\u2019 most dominant modern champions, regardless of discipline.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s no surprise, therefore, to see Ruiz both praise him, yet pick against him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen a few little videos of him hitting the bag and some fights,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I think Usyk beats him, especially if he\u2019s not using his legs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxing-social.com\/news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">READ ALL OF BOXING SOCIAL\u2019S NEWS<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former heavyweight boxing world champion, Andy Ruiz Jr., praised Rico Verhoeven ahead of the kickboxing icon\u2019s world&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-655024","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\/655024","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=655024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}