{"id":458728,"date":"2026-03-05T10:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T10:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/458728\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T10:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T10:28:07","slug":"rico-verhoeven-reveals-ufc-made-decent-contract-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/458728\/","title":{"rendered":"Rico Verhoeven reveals UFC made \u2018decent\u2019 contract offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC nearly landed the \u201cPrince of Kickboxing.\u201d<\/p>\n

GLORY Kickboxing\u2019s longest-reigning Heavyweight Champion, Rico Verhoeven, is preparing for the biggest fight of his career, a clash with unified boxing king Oleksandr Usyk for the WBC Heavyweight title at Glory of Giza<\/a> on Sat., May 23, 2026, in Giza, Egypt.<\/p>\n

Before committing to boxing, Verhoeven had multiple options on the table \u2014 including a contract offer from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). The proposed debut would have come against fan favorite<\/a> Derrick Lewis at UFC 324, the promotion\u2019s first card on Paramount+.<\/p>\n

When news of the declined deal surfaced<\/a>, many fans assumed the UFC lowballed Verhoeven with a Contender Series-type contract (10k\/10k). According to the Dutch champion, that couldn\u2019t be further from the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a decent offer, but when you put the two offers next to each other,\u201d Verhoeven told Ariel Helwani. \u201cLike a big crossover fight with Anthony Joshua<\/a> with a serious paycheck as well or a crossover to the UFC, which is different because Derrick Lewis is an amazing fighter and big name but didn\u2019t have the same stature that I\u2019m looking for \u2014 it was a good debut fight to transiton to the UFC but I said no, let\u2019s go for the Anthony Joshua fight so thats what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verhoeven said the UFC\u2019s financial package was comparable to what he earns in GLORY and emphasized that the promotion treated him with respect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a decent offer,\u201d he explained. \u201cI saw so much online that the UFC came in and gave me a bullshit offer because I\u2019m a no-name. They definitely did not do that. They treated me with a lot of respect and gave me a really good offer, especially in terms of what they offer other fighters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, however, the potential boxing payday \u2014 first against Anthony Joshua and now against Usyk \u2014 proved too lucrative to ignore.<\/p>\n

At 36 years old, Verhoeven isn\u2019t ruling out a future UFC crossover. But for now, the kickboxing icon has his sights set on Heavyweight boxing gold \u2014 and a mega payday to match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC nearly landed the \u201cPrince of Kickboxing.\u201d GLORY Kickboxing\u2019s longest-reigning Heavyweight Champion, Rico Verhoeven, is preparing for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,114938,30367,101,914,56,54,55,1819],"class_list":["post-458728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-glory-k-1-kickboxing-news-results","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}