It wasn’t as easy as people expected, but in the end, unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk defeated kickboxing legend Rico Verhoeven by 11th-round TKO at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt on Saturday to retain his WBC, WBA, and IBF titles.
Usyk (25–0, 16 KOs) got the win, but many believed he easily could have lost. This fight was without controversy, as many believe that the stoppage by referee Mark Lyson was premature, as he stopped the fight with officially one second left in Round 11.
If you listen closely to the telecast, you’ll hear the bell ring before Lyson stopped the fight. Before the stoppage in Round 11, Usyk had dropped Verhoeven (1-1, 1 KO), who had some extra time to recuperate after losing his mouthpiece. However, it was clear that Verhoeven remained coherent and was still defending himself.
What was also controversial were the judges’ scorecards. Going into Round 11, two judges had the fight even at 95, and one other judge had Rico up 96-94. You could argue that Usyk should probably had needed a knockout to win this fight. However, according to CompuBox, Rico landed only one more punch than Usyk (113-112) and only four more power shots (93-89), so maybe the scorecards were just fine.
In the end, it appears we may have seen the best of the 39-year-old Usyk. Maybe it’s time for his great career to come to an end before he gets hurt, or maybe it’s a case of one fighter not taking the other fighter seriously, which is understandable when you consider that this was Rico’s second boxing match of his career. Who knows.
Going forward, there are some tough opponents, including Agit Kabayel and Moses Itauma. Maybe Usyk goes the safer route and fights former world champion Deontay Wilder. However, based on what we saw in Egypt, any fight for Usyk could be tough at this stage of his career.
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