Rico Verhoeven came within one second of the biggest upset in heavyweight history. Nobody has booked the rematch, and Joe Rogan wants Dana White to fix that.
Verhoeven pushed Oleksandr Usyk to the edge at Glory in Giza on May 23, in front of the Pyramids, in what was only his second professional boxing match. The referee stopped it at 2:59 of the 11th round. Two judges had it level at 95-95 and the third had Verhoeven ahead 96-94.
Speaking on a podcast with Verhoeven, Rogan did not accept the officiating.
It’s very difficult to accept, and if you’d have lost by a decision, it would’ve been insanity. I don’t want to think it’s corruption, but it’s almost worse if it’s incompetence. You have this enormous fight where you have terrible judging, terrible judging. It’s not fair, it’s not right.
He then floated a promoter.
That is the fight, it’s one of the biggest fights in heavyweight boxing right now, if not the biggest. You and Usyk is the fight in the heavyweight division right now.
I wish I was a promoter. Maybe we could get Dana White to get Zuffa involved? I don’t know, is there some sort of a deal that Usyk has with somebody?
Usyk has been linked with Zuffa Boxing before without anything materializing.
Turki Alalshikh got into the ring afterward and told Verhoeven a rematch would happen. Three months on, there has been no movement.
Complicating it further, the belt they fought for is gone. Usyk vacated the WBC, WBA and IBF titles in June, keeping the lineal and Ring championships, and has been linked with a farewell bout against Deontay Wilder.
Verhoeven only got the fight because another one collapsed. He had been booked to face Anthony Joshua in May, and when Joshua withdrew following the car crash in Nigeria that killed two of his team, Verhoeven’s camp approached Eddie Hearn about Usyk instead. He had boxed professionally once before, in 2014, and gave up 25 pounds on the night.
