{"id":548233,"date":"2026-04-24T12:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T12:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/548233\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T12:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T12:17:07","slug":"top-heavyweight-predicts-major-upset-in-usyk-vs-rico-verhoeven-title-fight-i-know-his-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/548233\/","title":{"rendered":"Top heavyweight predicts major upset in Usyk vs Rico Verhoeven title fight: &#8220;I know his game&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rico Verhoeven faces an almighty challenge when he collides with reigning and unified heavyweight world champion, <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/oleksandr-usyk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>, in just his second professional boxing bout.<\/p>\n<p>However, there is one well-ranked heavyweight that believes that the Dutchman will come out on top.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst recognised as a legendary kickboxer, Rico Verhoeven\u2019s boxing credentials are far less impressive, with his solitary outing coming back in 2014 against a 0-5 Janos Finfera.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, \u2018The King of Kickboxing\u2019 will challenge for the WBC and lineal heavyweight crown against Usyk next month, with the opportunity to become the most inexperienced ruler of all time \u2013 trumping <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/on-this-day-leon-spinks-shocked-muhammad-ali-and-the-world\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leon Spinks\u2019 record of becoming the heavyweight champion in his eighth fight<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the boxing world is ruling out any chance of an upset, despite Verhoeven\u2019s 60-10 kickboxing record, but New York\u2019s Jarrell Miller, who is rated as the #9 contender with the WBA, told <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MatchroomBoxing\/status\/2047095438461821035?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">Matchroom Boxing<\/a> that he is picking Verhoeven to win.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRico is very game. He is not no punk. So I\u2019m gonna throw one up in the air and say Rico, man! I came up on the kickboxing scene with Rico Verhoeven, you know, Glory and K-1.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[He is a] phenomenal fighter, in his respectable sport. If you want to go by the statistics, yes, the fight favours Usyk. Yes, Usyk is supposed to win and all that. Yes, we can say that, but I\u2019m going with my boy Rico, man!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/c1eqq665vd8o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Usyk-Verhoeven takes place at the Pyramids of Giza on Saturday, May 23<\/a>, whilst Miller fights Lenier Pero tomorrow night and hopes to secure a fight with <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/anthony-joshua\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anthony Joshua<\/a> later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rico Verhoeven faces an almighty challenge when he collides with reigning and unified heavyweight world champion, Oleksandr Usyk,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-548233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548233","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=548233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}