This weekend, Oleksandr Usyk is tasked with Dutch kickboxing star Rico Verhoeven in a controversial defence of his WBC heavyweight world title. Now, UFC heavyweight champion and longtime sparring partner of Verhoeven, Tom Aspinall, has offered his thoughts on the contest.<\/p>\n
Verhoeven possesses a record of just 1-0 in professional boxing, with that solitary outing coming 12 years ago against an opponent that had lost all five of his prior contests. Yet, after a stellar kickboxing career, the man from the Netherlands has been permitted to challenge for the WBC heavyweight world title<\/a>.<\/p>\n If the \u2018King of Kickboxing\u2019 manages to pull off the upset, he will become the most inexperienced male world champion in boxing history, trumping the three-bout records of Saensak Muangsurin and Vasyl Lomachenko.<\/p>\n Speaking on the Fight Your Corner podcast<\/a>, Aspinall admitted that it is not the most likely outcome.<\/p>\n \u201cI have been sparring Rico for 10 years so I know him well, I am lucky enough to say that he is a friend of mine, as well. He is a super, super good guy.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that anybody has got a chance, but I think that Usyk is another level. Just because Rico is my friend doesn\u2019t mean that I am going to sit here on a podcast and lie about it, he is up against it.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the MMA star refused to completely rule out the possibility of a seismic upset, believing that Verhoeven\u2019s movement could be an issue for the undefeated Ukrainian.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that anybody can win in combat sports, I think that everybody has got a chance. Rico is a big human being, he might cause Usyk some problems with his movement because they [kickboxers] move different.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Usyk-Verhoeven takes place on Saturday night at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, topping a bill that features three other world title bouts<\/a>.<\/p>\n