{"id":504104,"date":"2026-02-28T00:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T00:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/504104\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T00:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T00:07:07","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-set-to-defend-heavyweight-title-against-rico-verhoeven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/504104\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk set to defend heavyweight title against Rico Verhoeven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Oleksandr Usyk is scheduled to defend the WBC heavyweight title against kickboxing legend Rico Verhoeven on May 23, an event set to take place at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ringmagazine\/status\/2027454956303683629\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ring Magazine<\/a> announced Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Usyk hasn\u2019t entered the squared circle since July 2025, when he improved to 24-0 as a professional with a fifth-round knockout over Daniel Dubois to retain the WBA WBC, WBO, IBO and The Ring heavyweight titles, adding the IBF belt to his collection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The boxing superstar won six bouts over the past four years, scoring two wins over Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Dubois each.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Verhoeven only fought once in boxing, a second-round knockout in Germany in 2014. The kickboxing great parted ways with GLORY after defending his title over Artem Vakhitov in June 2025 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/ufc\/470390\/ufc-tried-to-sign-rico-verhoeven-for-paramount-debut-but-he-passed-on-offer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">had conversations with the UFC<\/a> about fighting Derrick Lewis on UFC 324 in January, but ultimately opted not to sign with the MMA organization.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The former GLORY superstar went undefeated in the last 11 years, an outstanding 22-fight winning streak with key victories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI truly respect people whop reach the very top in their sport,\u201d Usyk told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ringmagazine.com\/news\/oleksandr-usyk-rico-verhoeven-set-for-may-23-at-pyramids-of-giza-35GjFMtjtQgXElBuQHNFhQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ring<\/a>. \u201cRico is one of them \u2014 a powerful athlete and a great champion. Being a champion isn\u2019t just about belts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Verhoeven told the magazine that being a kickboxing champion \u201cfor that long didn\u2019t take away from the hunger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cUsyk is the undisputed in boxing,\u201d Verhoeven said. \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of challenge that motivated me. Undisputed versus undisputed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk is scheduled to defend the WBC heavyweight title against kickboxing legend Rico Verhoeven on May 23,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,711,49,48,701,82],"class_list":["post-504104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-latest-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}