People really think Rico was good?

Styles make fights and I'm personally convinced that Wardley and Dubois would have knocked out Rico cold, Usyk simply wasn't prepared for that fight...

 

I have only seen a highlight now, not gotten a chance to watch the fight, but what I saw probably spelled it out enough to extrapolate. I think your eyes are deceiving you, honestly. I feel Verhoeven, while executing in a way I'd not be coaching anyone to execute, was still doing it in a highly calculated way. He knew what he was doing, it didn't have to look great to boxing old heads. I wasn't sure what to expect from the commentary, if it was more bad Usyk or good Verhoeven, but after about ten seconds I thought 'Oh. Okay. I see. No wonder Usyk looked bad.' I had no familiarity with Verhoeven going in. It wasn't pretty stuff, but more purposeful on Verhoeven's side than Usyk just being old or unmotivated. I don't know if Verhoeven's got any Monzonesque qualities as a kickboxer but in some ways, during the bits I saw, I was thinking of some Monzon qualities, as strange as that might sound.

 

Fighting someone totally unconventional is hard...

I remember sparring some of my bigger friends who didn't know **** all about boxing. Was hard to deal with their wild swings and they didn't bite on any feints. Drags you down to their level.

 

Put Rico in with Dubios and Rico walks away with a belt.

 

He was supposed to be obliterated and when he didn’t and started winning some rounds people got a little over excited.


I think in time people will lose being in the hype and outrage of the moment.

 

he fought a good fight. he kept constantly turning usyk away from his strong side. he also did a lot of dipping and weaving, coupled with the bounce in his erratic rythme it made him hard to time. another thing was his constant pawing at usyk which allowed him to sneak in hard shots in between because usyk was lulled into complacency by the throwaway pawing. and he is deceptively fast when he puts some mustard on his shots. but he was offering openings that for some reason usyk couldnt, or wouldnt, capitalize on. i dont think he would have such success against other top fighters.

 

We have clowns in here claiming he is a top 6 HW.

 

He was very smart in the way he fought and you could tell he put alot of time and effort into coming up with a game plan.
And he concentrated more on throwing punches with speed more then power.
Very smart game plan.
!

 

His workrate was ridiculous. Geniunely insane, Ive never seen anything like this.

probably the most impressive showing of stamina I’ve ever seen considering he NEVER stopped moving for a second and hes 265lbs!!!!!

 

Haha, yes I mentioned my Hank comparison in another thread.

Do we remember the hype after Ngannou nearly beat Fury? It was pretty similar to what we're seeing now. What happened next...
However good Rico was, this unfortunately goes down to how bad Usyk was. Usyk could be in his Fury 'Kronk' period, where he knows he can't move as well as he could, and is planting his feet and trying to bang

 

Well Rico was more than good enough for big parts of the bout, Rico is a astute fighter in his own right, with a damned good trainer, they both will have learned much and will likely use that data to make Rico perform better next time.

I think we can be assured that Ricos purse in his next boxing bout, will likely be big enough to allow him to retire if he so chose, with no money worrries for life

 

100%.

Usyk's efficacy is all about getting into his rythym & groove, and he has 3 main facets - his lead hand feints slight of hand 'wand', his footwork, and his insane pattern matching ability to see what his opponent does and anticipate.

Rico, under guidance from Peter Fury negated 2 of these aspects - the lead hand and the pattern matching by being as awkward and as unpredictable as he could.

Usyk's lack of footwork was probably combination of the above not allowing him to establish his rythym, plus age and maybe a lacklustre camp (seeing lots of rumours of his old guard in camp all but being gone and Usyk spending more time coiaching Joshua and clowning around etc). Whether the camp was taking Rico lightly, or something more endemic remains to be seen.

 

I think the subtle feinting can be more rewarding against fighters (boxers) who have the muscle memory to react to the subtle motions that inform them to react to punches.

Thing is, guys from kickboxing or MMA would be more accustomed to reading different feints (and some similar ones).

Some of the old-timey hand feints might actually have been more effective against the more novice boxing of Rico and Francis.

It's interesting, sometimes the best boxers against boxers, aren't the best boxers against novice/awkward/non-boxers.