Right then — nine days out. Oleksandr Usyk meets Rico Verhoeven on Saturday 23 May at the Pyramids of Giza in one of the most genuinely strange heavyweight crossovers boxing has put on in living memory. WBC title on the line, DAZN PPV worldwide, and the unified champion has spent the back end of his camp dismissing every question about the size disparity.
Let's be straight about what this fight actually is. Verhoeven is the greatest heavyweight kickboxer of the modern era. He has dominated Glory for the best part of a decade. He has had exactly one professional boxing match. And he is now stepping in with the man who has unified the cruiserweight division, then the heavyweight division, in consecutive runs. On a pure boxing metric, this is a mismatch on paper. On the size metric — Verhoeven is six-foot-five and walks around comfortably above the cruiserweight ceiling — it is anything but.
The Champion Is Not Bothered
Usyk has spent this week brushing off the size questions with the same calm he has used on every heavyweight he has shared the ring with. He beat Anthony Joshua twice. He took Tyson Fury's record. He has dealt with reach and weight and height for the entire heavyweight chapter of his career. Verhoeven, in pure boxing terms, is not the kind of test those names were.
But — and this is where the crossover element makes things interesting — Verhoeven has years of championship-level striking experience. He understands timing. He understands range. He carries genuine heavyweight one-shot power, particularly in the right hand. If Usyk takes this lightly, if he lets the size and the reach dictate, there are theoretical moments where Verhoeven could land cleanly. Not many. But some.
The Card Beneath
Ten boxing bouts on the night. Hamzah Sheeraz defending his momentum against Alem Begic at middleweight. Jack Catterall versus Shakhram Giyasov, which is a properly meaningful 140-pound scrap that on a normal night would headline a card on its own. Plus the obvious atmosphere of fighting in front of the Pyramids of Giza, which is the kind of staging Riyadh has been chasing for two years.
The Prediction
Usyk by stoppage, late rounds. I have him going seven or eight rounds out-boxing Verhoeven from outside, picking shots, framing him onto the right hand, and breaking him down progressively rather than going for the early kill. By round nine or ten, Verhoeven's lack of pro-boxing-style conditioning catches up with him and the referee waves it off. Brilliant performance, another notch on the most ridiculous heavyweight resume of the modern era.
If you are not on DAZN by 23 May, sort it out. The card is a proper night of boxing, and the staging is the kind of thing the sport should be doing more of. Levels.