Rico Verhoeven vs Oleksandr Usyk official for WBC Heavyweight Championship — May 23 in Egypt (DAZN)

You are right there, so maybe not exactly the same, but similar

 

The other Rico, Spider Rico has a better chance.

 

Interesting that in sense, Usyk is going up against another wing of the Fury family.

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I dunno man. K-1 in it's peak had major money behind it from Japanese TV. Granted not Saudi level but in it's golden era it was the biggest combat sports promotion on a global level. It paid fighters fantastically well. Drew huge crowds and hit crazy TV viewing figures. They legitimately drew over 90,000 fans at the Tokyo dome when co-promoting with Pride FC. 75,000 for world grand Prix. This was at a time where boxing and UFC could only dream about hitting them live gate and TV viewing numbers.

Kickboxing popularity even in Japan took massive hit. Once K-1 lost its Japanese network TV deal it was doomed exactly like Pride FC before them. K-1, Japanese MMA and Japanese pro-wrestling all went through a period where each of them dominated combat sports. All dropped in popularity Once Japanese network TV walked away.

Remember the K-1 roster was stacked from heavyweight downwards. They had huge draws and Bob Sapp took the brand to a whole new level. His popularity will never be matched. Even when K-1 was putting on amazing fight shows with best exciting fighters they couldn't gain attention of fight fans in lots of western countries and that was the time it should have. Could Glory ever manage to create a roster like K-1 did? I doubtful even with Saudi money that Glory could gain a whole new fan base that falls in love with kickboxing. For whatever reason. Fight fans in the west just got no love for kickboxing. Glory would need American fighters right at the top of the promotion winning titles to stand any chance. Same for Glory expansion in Japan. It would need a Japanese star similar to Nasukawa to be the face of the company. K-1 could never find that American fighter who could win Grand Prix and be the superstar they needed. They had Bob Sapp who was the most over combat sports fighter in all of Japan but it was his unbelievable good charisma that made him. When it came to fighting his heart was never in it to train the hardest and become the best fighter dominating the sport so he couldn't become that superstar outside of Japan K-1 badly needed.

What's is real strange is there are lots of UFC fans who favourite fighters are stand up guys who were elite kickboxers. Them same people would never watch a Glory or Rise show though.

 

Question for those saying that Usyk deserves to finally get a big pay day. Haven’t all of his heavyweight title fights been big paydays? Especially the seemingly endless rematches. I was under the impression that he was getting paid tremendous money for these fights, no?

 

Turki is really the one who's been pushing for this fight, so I assume this is one of his fantasy match-ups. And the sanctioning orgs. seem to be fine with it too ($$$).

Peter Fury is also training Rico for this fight.

 

Gents , stop talking about "cashout" .

Even the slightest common sense dictates that a completeley meaningless fight against a completely meaningless opponent in a boxing wise completely meaningless country is NOT more money than lets say wardley in wembley .

 

These fights in random countries never pan out. It's February and this is supposed to happen in May.

Gun to my head, it doesn't happen...certainly not in Giza.

How many times was Joshua supposed to fight someone in Africa? Never happened, never will happen.

 

But Turkyi is behind it. As good as done.

Believe me, I would rather you were right. We all wake up to headlines tomorrow that say, "money wasn't right." But if it comes off, I am going to watch and enjoy.

 

Rico should have gone to the UFC where he may have been a genuine top 5 level guy and generated some hype, but the UFC decided to penny pinch and lost out.

This fight is pretty pointless though honestly. Good on Rico for getting paid though.

 

Does the threadstarter think Verhoeven is the A side

 

Peter Fury iirc has trained Rico for some time.

If I’m right you can kinda see it with Rico’s jerky feints and little ticks that Tyson has too.

 

Boxing is a joke these days. Not for the guys earning that money though.

 

Verhoeven by KO.

 

That's where your wrong though (again)

The Wardley fight promoted by Warren would need to make a profit
This backed by Turki clearly doesn't

Turki will be paying Uysk more, far more than Warren would be able to finance


Crap fight but definitely a bigger pay day