Stream Usyk vs Rico LIVE with DAZN!<\/a><\/p>\nRico Verhoeven\u2019s recent form<\/p>\n
Kickboxing. He last fought about 11 months ago, beating Artem Vakhitov by decision at Glory 100 in Rotterdam.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to claim to be up on what\u2019s happened in kickboxing over the last, oh, ever. Like a lot of combat sports fans I have absolute respect for kickboxing but it\u2019s just not something I\u2019ve followed beyond knowing some names over the years. Verhoeven is one of those names, and if you bother to study up just a bit on the 37-year-old, I think a couple things become clear, very quickly:<\/p>\n
This is a sincere champion-level fighter in his sport. That spells out on paper easy enough, but sample even a few of his fights over the last decade and change, and it\u2019s clear as day. This is no paper champion; this guy\u2019s elite at what he does.He is very technically sound. He doesn\u2019t have to overwhelm with power or physical gifts. He can and often does win on technique, skill, and pure quality, which comes from being extremely dedicated to what he does and very serious about it. His fights aren\u2019t movie kickboxing with wild, one-shot head kick knockouts.<\/p>\n
Does any of that remind you of anyone? Like Usyk, Verhoeven is deeply serious about and deeply dedicated to being truly great. That is why he\u2019s so great, same as Usyk. No shortcuts.<\/p>\n
Who will win Usyk vs Rico?<\/p>\n
Rico is 6\u20195\u201d, he usually weighs about 270 lbs, he\u2019s solidly built and just a huge man. He\u2019s a champion of his sport. He\u2019s earned being called the \u201cKing of Kickboxing.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a big, powerful man. He\u2019s been in the spotlight. I do not think the pressure will get to him, even if fighting Usyk is \u2014 without meaning to be disrespectful to kickboxing \u2014 a far bigger global stage than he\u2019s had before. I don\u2019t think that will bother him.<\/p>\n
It just comes down to experience in the discipline and, as always, levels. For all I know, Rico Verhoeven could beat a lot of heavyweight boxers. That might be true. But Oleksandr Usyk is truly special. He\u2019s generational. He\u2019s an all-timer. And he\u2019s not 55 years old or something, either. He\u2019s maybe a bit past his prime, but it hasn\u2019t shown up yet in the ring.<\/p>\n
Rico might score a home run punch and knock Usyk out. He\u2019s big enough, strong enough. Heavyweight boxing is a wild card in that respect, more than any other division. One punch can change everything.<\/p>\n
I do think Usyk will also have to be a little cautious up front and get a read on what Verhoeven is actually bringing. Experienced fighters who come into boxing can be odd. We\u2019ve seen it with Conor McGregor, with Francis Ngannou and others.<\/p>\n
Just little things like the stance, the way they throw punches \u2014 it\u2019s like when position players are put in to pitch in a Major League game. A key reason you occasionally see those guys get a strikeout, or at least not get destroyed, is that basically nobody hitting against them has seen the like of a 72 mph fastball in ages. I\u2019ve heard players describe it as having to try to remember their \u201chigh school swing,\u201d which has long been adjusted and forgotten by the time they\u2019re in the bigs, because they\u2019re never really going to face pitching like that again. And then, suddenly, they do.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have to be as good as someone to potentially cause them problems. Rhythms can be thrown off, timing gets weird. Usyk has not fought anyone who will approach it the way Verhoeven has in a long, long time. Once he gets a look at it, you figure it\u2019ll be easy, but if he\u2019s not careful, yeah, some oddly-timed power shot could get in there. And then you never know.<\/p>\n
The unfortunate thing from the Rico standpoint is that Usyk has never taken anyone less than 100 percent seriously. Like Rico, Usyk is a serious man. They have personalities, they have senses of humor, they\u2019re not miserable people with harsh attitudes, but these are serious guys. Usyk also won\u2019t want to be embarrassed, and frankly, losing to Verhoeven would be embarrassing.<\/p>\n
Usyk will feel it out a little. Then when he wants to, Usyk will start to take over. I expect him to start chipping away, then pick it up, pick it up, and make the point. He\u2019ll stop Rico. He\u2019ll win convincingly. There won\u2019t be much actual trouble when all is said and done; the potential for it is real, but it would require Usyk to make the sort of mistakes that Usyk does not make.<\/p>\n
Prediction: Oleksandr Usyk by TKO between Rounds 5 and 8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk and Rico Verhoeven are set to meet in Egypt on Saturday, with Usyk\u2019s WBC heavyweight title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,711,217149,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-684940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxing-predictions","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684940","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=684940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}