Heavyweight wants Usyk to train him for comeback ‘fight of the century’ against Rico Verhoeven

Oleksandr Usyk was shockingly pushed to the brink by Rico Verhoeven in May, but whilst it seems a rematch will never take place, Usyk could find himself tasked with Verhoeven in a different way, with one heavyweight hoping the Ukrainian will train him to face the kickboxing legend.

The selection of Verhoeven as an opponent was deemed as disrespectful to the boxing world at first, with a near-novice being permitted to jump the queue and challenge a legendary heavyweight world champion for the coveted WBC title.

However, on fight night, Verhoeven provided Usyk with the ‘toughest fight of his career’ and found himself on the wrong side of a controversial round 11 stoppage after an impressive display up until that point.

Now, Verhoeven’s fellow Dutchman and kickboxing rival Alistair Overeem has been calling for boxing fight against his countryman. 

Speaking to All Out Fighting, the 46-year-old former UFC star explained why he would love to train under Usyk’s tutelage.

“I visited his training camp in Valencia and there was good chemistry, good energy, I was learning and studying and, to me, this fires me up and motivates me.

“If I could do my camp at Team Usyk, it would be my pleasure.

“Absolutely, [his experience against Verhoeven could help me] and the things that he has done, he is amazing. I look at him, maybe because I am a fighter and I look at fighters, and I have always learned from Usyk, always, on multiple facets.

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“When you are training this long, it is not only about what you are doing in the gym and punching the bag, punching the mitts and sparring. It is also about what you are doing outside of the gym, what is your life like?

“If we are going to explore the boxing route, to me it would be very interesting to check out their camp and see if there was something there for me.”

Overeem then went on to label the potential showdown as ‘the fight of the century’, believing that ‘the whole of the Netherlands would tune in’.

“This is going to be the fight of the century. The biggest fight in history, ever. That is also one of our talking points, you can sell out a stadium with this, the whole of the Netherlands will be watching.”

Overeem has not fought in any discipline since testing positive for a banned substance during the aftermath of his October 2022 win over Badr Hari in the GLORY Kickboxing franchise and the veteran has never taken part in a professional boxing bout.

Although, with established and ranked heavyweights seemingly reluctant to face Verhoeven and risk losing to a kickboxer, Overeem could represent Verhoeven’s best route back into the limelight.