Unified heavyweight champ Oleksandr Usyk (25-0, 16 KOs) successfully defended his WBC title by 11th-round stoppage of Rico Verhoeven (1-1, 1 KOs) in controversial fashion. The fight was streamed live on DAZN and took place in front of the Egyptian Pyramids at Giza.
Coming into the fight, no one was taking Rico seriously as a challenger for Usyk’s heavyweight title in only his second pro fight. Rico however, is a former kickboxing champion with a 66-10 (21 KOs) record, and his massive size and constant movement gave Usyk all he could handle.
Usyk looked slow and uncomfortable for most of the fight as Rico applied pressure and didn’t give the champion much room to work.
Going into the 11th, Rico appeared to be well ahead in the fight, but Usyk dropped him in the final moments of the round. While hurt, Rico did make it to his feet, and as Usyk tried to jump on him as the bell rang, referee Mark Lyson inexplicably waived it off, despite Rico fighting back and the round having ended.
At the time of the stoppage, two judges had the fight even at 95-95, while one judge had Rico up 96-94. 3MoreRounds had it 98-92 for Rico.
Also on the card, Frank Sanchez (26-1, 19 KOs) earned an IBF heavyweight title shot against Usyk with a second-round demolition of Richard Torrez Jr (14-1, 12 KOs). Torrez, who is an Olympic silver medalist, was caught by a stiff right uppercut from Sanchez that ended the fight.
Jack Catterall (33-2, 14 KOs) also earned the vacant WBA welterweight title with a dominant decision win over Shakhram Giyasov (17-1, 10 KOs).
Finally, Mizuki Hiruta (11-0, 2 KOs) retained her WBO junior bantamweight title with a unanimous decision win over Mai Soliman with scores of 99-91, 99-91, and 98-92. After the fight, she said she’d like to have a unification fight against Jasmine Artiga, who owns the WBA title.
