Rico Verhoeven is refusing to play the role of crossover novelty as he prepares to face Oleksandr Usyk for the WBC heavyweight title at the Pyramids of Giza on May 23, declaring that he has spent six months building both the body and the mindset to upset boxing's pound-for-pound benchmark.
The Dutch kickboxing icon, training under Peter Fury, has owned the Glory super-heavyweight throne for the better part of a decade. He is 1-0 in professional boxing and is being installed as a heavy underdog against a Usyk team that has dispatched Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois. Verhoeven, though, says he sees the fight differently.
"We're under no illusions that he's a great Alexander Usyk, but we're not here to make up the numbers," Verhoeven said in an interview with Seconds Out. "We have an elite mindset. We're here to get the victory, get the win. We're not here to play games. We're not here to take part. We're here to take over."
The 36-year-old said the strategy has been built around the conviction that Usyk's record, peerless as it is, does not need to dominate his thoughts in the ring.
"It could be anybody that's right across me," he said. "Of course, we're now facing the pound-for-pound very best to ever have done it. But he is a man — two arms and two legs. So that's how I'm approaching this fight, and I've put everything I have into this. So either way I can never take anything away from myself. I did everything I could. For six months, that's why I'm here: fully focused, fully prepared and ready to take this challenge on."
Asked where the openings are against a boxer who has not lost a professional fight, Verhoeven hinted at the very thing his team has been hammering since training camp opened — that his rhythm, posture and shot selection will not look like anything Usyk has faced in 22 professional bouts.
"Every fighter has his openings and has his weaknesses. So do I. So that's how we approach it, and we just try to show him something different that he hasn't seen before. I'm not your typical boxer, and I think that makes a difference."
The winner stands to be drawn into a heavyweight ladder that already has Joshua, Tyson Fury and the newly crowned WBO champion Daniel Dubois jockeying for the next mega-night. Verhoeven made no attempt to dampen the talk, openly targeting a step into the Joshua sweepstakes if his hand is raised in Egypt.
"Most definitely," he said when asked if Joshua is on his radar. "I'm going to get that belt, and then from there we're going to continue on as the face of boxing."
Verhoeven also weighed in on the Fabio Wardley–Daniel Dubois title fight that produced a new WBO heavyweight champion just a fortnight earlier.
"That was a crazy fight. I loved it. Went back and forth. From my point of view, I thought Fabio could have changed it up a little bit. He stuck too much to it — it was a little bit too simple. That's why Dubois got the best of him. But let's see what the rematch does."
With Hollywood action star Jason Statham expected to drape the belt over the winner — Verhoeven confirmed Statham will travel to Giza for the event — the Dutchman is happy to embrace the spectacle without flinching from the challenge.
"I was super happy and thankful for him putting my name out there," he said. "I'm crazy happy. I'm super excited to be here."
