When Rico Verhoeven walked away from professional kickboxing, a sport he dominated for nearly a decade, he was at a crossroads in his combat sports career. One path led him to mixed martial arts (MMA), while the other took him to boxing. Based on the purse he’s likely to get from his “Glory in Giza” fight against Oleksandr Usyk, it appears Verhoeven made the right choice.
It also spared him a merciless beating from ex-UFC champ Francis Ngannou.
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“I think against Francis, he would not [stand] much of a chance,” retired MMA and kickboxing veteran, Alistair Overeem, told Ariel Helwani. “Just basically because he’s missing the wrestling and the submissions. He’s just not training that. It takes years to develop that, and it shouldn’t be underestimated, and I think that he and his team have made a wise choice to kind of stay out of MMA, because you’re just not gonna catch up with those years of experience just like that in a training camp. Francis Ngannou is totally a no-go area. Stay away from that. Francis is clever. He’s just going to win the fight — and it would not even be a difficult fight.”
Overeem knows a thing or two about the power of “The Predator.”
Ngannou, who already tried his hand in the “sweet science” to mixed results, recently returned to MMA as part of the “Rousey vs. Carano” fight card on Netflix, smashing and trashing Brazilian bruiser Philipe Lins. As for Verhoeven, he’ll get his chance to shock the world and claim the WBC strap this weekend in Egypt against one of the best heavyweight boxers in history.
