{"id":696931,"date":"2026-05-27T02:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/696931\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T02:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:24:10","slug":"verhoeven-banks-on-kickboxing-style-and-size-for-usyk-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/696931\/","title":{"rendered":"Verhoeven banks on kickboxing style and size for Usyk clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/fighter\/rico-verhoeven\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rico Verhoeven<\/a> believes his kickboxing background and natural weight advantage will trouble <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/fighter\/oleksandr-usyk\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> when the pair meet. The <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/heavyweight\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">heavyweight<\/a> says his movement and stance differ from traditional boxers Usyk has faced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUsyk has pulled the puzzle of boxing out and put it back together, but I&#8217;m not a traditional boxer &#8211; I&#8217;m a kickboxer. My stance is different, my movement is different and I am a naturally big, athletic guy. When I hit him, he&#8217;s going to feel a natural 20-kilo weight difference.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>  \u2014 Rico Verhoeven, via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/clypnr49dljo?at_medium=RSS&amp;at_campaign=rss\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Sport<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Verhoeven competes at 123 kg and has spent his career in kickboxing rather than pure boxing. Usyk has moved up through the weight classes and won at <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/heavyweight\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">heavyweight<\/a> despite carrying less natural size than most opponents in the division.<\/p>\n<p>What it moves<\/p>\n<p>Verhoeven&#8217;s comments suggest he plans to exploit physical differences rather than match Usyk&#8217;s technical approach. The strategy hinges on whether a kickboxer&#8217;s movement translates under boxing rules and whether the weight gap plays out as he expects.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/clypnr49dljo?at_medium=RSS&amp;at_campaign=rss\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">bbc.com<\/a>. Full <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/fighter\/rico-verhoeven\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rico Verhoeven<\/a> fight history and recent news at boxingnews.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rico Verhoeven believes his kickboxing background and natural weight advantage will trouble Oleksandr Usyk when the pair meet.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-696931","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\/696931","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=696931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}