Rico Verhoeven has now offered one of his most detailed accounts yet of the chaotic final moments in his fight against Oleksandr Usyk, and from his perspective, the ending felt anything but clear.
Speaking during an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, Verhoeven walked through the sequence that led to the controversial Round 11 stoppage, starting with the uppercut that put him on the canvas.
“I got hit with the uppercut. People who know my fights know I’ve been dropped multiple times… No matter how much time is left on the clock, I get back up, and I end up winning,” Verhoeven explained.
Despite the knockdown, the Dutch star said his mindset never wavered. Once back on his feet, he believed survival, not recovery, was the immediate goal.
“That was the mindset… I got back up, they put the mouthpiece back in, and I heard there were only 10 seconds left. So I thought, ‘Oh, okay, that’s good.’”
With the round nearly over, Verhoeven expected a final push from “The Cat” and planned accordingly.
“Let me keep my hands up and get to the 12th round. I knew he was going to come straight at me, so I thought, ‘Pop, pop, keep my hands up and wait until the bell goes.’”
But what followed is where confusion set in.
“And then it was just like, when is the bell gonna go? Those 10 seconds were taking a long time,” he said. “Then he jumped in, and I was like, ‘Ok, f—, the round is over.’”
Instead of hearing the bell, “King of Kickboxing” was met with the referee stepping in to stop the fight, a moment that caught him completely off guard.
“He’s like, ‘No, it’s over.’ I was like, ‘What the heck is going on here?’”