{"id":802834,"date":"2026-03-04T06:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T06:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/802834\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T06:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T06:20:17","slug":"a-strong-punch-to-the-face-means-nothing-to-rico-verhoeven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/802834\/","title":{"rendered":"A strong punch to the face \u2018means nothing\u2019 to Rico Verhoeven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"line-height: 1.3800000000000001; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;\">Because on May 23, in Egypt, that is exactly what Rico Verhoeven, 1-0 (1 KO), will do. He will box Oleksandr Usyk, the best heavyweight boxer in the world in only his second professional boxing match \u2013 some 12 years after the last. He will then presumably realise in the process that everything he experienced in sparring with Tyson Fury is nothing compared to the experience of fighting Usyk \u2013 a two-time Fury conqueror \u2013 in a competitive bout over 12 rounds. He will realise, too, that it is one thing helping someone else prepare to challenge for the world heavyweight title, as Verhoeven did in 2015, yet quite another thing challenging for the WBC world heavyweight title himself. For that, more than just toughness is required. For that, you are no longer the help. You are instead the one now in need of help.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Because on May 23, in Egypt, that is exactly what Rico Verhoeven, 1-0 (1 KO), will do. He&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,4496,4495,5122,232593,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-802834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-news","10":"tag-boxingscene","11":"tag-oleksandr-usyk","12":"tag-rico-verhoeven","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116169465255773325","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}