LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) \u2013 Dutch former kickboxer Rico Verhoeven wants an apology, as well as a rematch, after being stopped\u00a0one second before \u200bthe end of the penultimate round in \u200ca WBC title bout with world heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk last weekend.<\/p>\n
The stoppage was controversial, with Verhoeven feeling he could have continued and some replays suggesting the bell \u200cmay \u200bhave rung before the referee signalled \u2060the end of \u2060the fight at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.<\/p>\n
Scorecards published by The Ring magazine afterwards showed two of the three judges had the fight \u200btied 95-95 going into the 11th of 12 rounds and the other had Verhoeven ahead 96-94.<\/p>\n
\u201c(I \u2060want) just an apology. What \u2060else can we do? I can\u2019t \u200bdemand anything else,\u201d Verhoeven told the BBC on Thursday, \u200badding his team had lodged an appeal with \u200cthe WBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cMistakes can be made because we\u2019re all human and that\u2019s OK. But all I\u2019m looking for actually is: \u2018yeah, sorry guys, this could have gone \u2060differently \u2013 this is something we have to look at and hopefully this doesn\u2019t happen in the future\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s it and \u2060then let\u2019s \u200ccontinue from there and get to \u2060the rematch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s Agit Kabayel is the WBC\u2019s \u200bmandatory \u200cchallenger and Usyk could have to \u200bfight him \u2060first before any rematch with Verhoeven.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s see what pops up next. But I have to be honest, it\u2019s got to be big. I feel like I\u2019m the uncrowned king,\u201d said Verhoeven.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Alan BaldwinEditing \u200bby Christian Radnedge)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) \u2013 Dutch former kickboxer Rico Verhoeven wants an apology, as well as a rematch,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-700552","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\/700552","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=700552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}