The Pyramids of Giza loomed over a purpose-built open-air arena for one of boxing’s most unusual world title fights in recent memory.<\/p>\n
A kickboxing heavyweight legend who ruled his sport for more than 4,000 days, Verhoeven sprinted to the ring at around 01:10 local time, flanked by performers dressed as Egyptian pharaohs, before Usyk emerged in a gladiator-style outfit complete with a golden helmet.<\/p>\n
Verhoeven, who insisted his unpredictability could trouble Usyk, made a lively start with constant movement and energy, landing a solid right hand to the body.<\/p>\n
Usyk responded with a sharp double uppercut in the second, but Verhoeven absorbed it well and fired back with two right hands of his own.<\/p>\n
Boxing royalty including Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, Terence Crawford, Gennady Golovkin and Anthony Joshua watched on from ringside, alongside Hollywood star Jason Statham – the man credited with helping to bring the fight together.<\/p>\n
Another right hand from Verhoeven landed flush on Usyk in the third round.<\/p>\n
Usyk – so often the sport’s master of patience – was forced to dig deep. He briefly responded in the fourth, hurting Verhoeven with a straight right and stinging left. <\/p>\n
“Get back to your boxing, you’re getting too greedy, trying to land and getting caught,” Verhoeven’s trainer Peter Fury warned his man.<\/p>\n
Verhoeven entered the sixth round for the first time in his fighting career – kickboxing bouts are capped at five rounds, and his only previous professional boxing fight ended inside two.<\/p>\n
He stuck to the trainer’s instruction and a lethargic Usyk was rocked again in the eighth by a right hand, but the champion came alive in the 10th and 11th, unleashing a flurry of punches and repeatedly finding the uppercut – the shot that had given him his most success all night.<\/p>\n
Verhoeven spat out his gumshield while Usyk immediately protested at the added time his opponent was given to recover.<\/p>\n
Usyk surged again and sensed the finish. Verhoeven was visibly hurt and a stoppage may have come in the 12th round had the fight continued.<\/p>\n
Arguably, Verhoeven should have been allowed the chance to see it through.<\/p>\n
Instead, the referee stepped in and waved off what will go down as a contentious stoppage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pyramids of Giza loomed over a purpose-built open-air arena for one of boxing’s most unusual world title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-600632","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\/600632","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=600632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}