Go ahead, ask the Sphinx
Usyk-Verhoeven title fight has mysterious finish
However the ancient Egyptian Pyramids of Giza were actually assembled some 4,500 years ago, they’ve stood as a triangular silent witness to the madness that’s gone on in the world around them ever since.
You’d have to think the worldwide spectacle of Saturday night’s world heavyweight championship fight between Ukrainian champion Oleksandr Usyk and a veritable tank of a kick boxing king named Rico Verhoeven from Holland, the land of Wooden Shoes, might well have loosened a stone or two. There hasn’t been that much pomp and circumstance and gold and glitter in the Egyptian desert since Cleopatra worked her magic on Marc Antony. Speaking of Marc Antony, that’s who champion Usyk appeared to be dressed as when he entered the ring.
Lights, cameras, Usyk’s name in gold letters on the Pyramids, it was showtime in Giza. Even the camels were blinking their eyes at all the lights and noise.
Verhoeven, 37, evidently thought it might be more fun - and more lucrative - to try to fight with his fists instead of his feet and consequently, was a surprise choice as an opponent for the champion Usyk, who surveyed the list of potential boxing challengers and, like many of the rest of us, yawned. He decided to go far afield.
This kind of thing has happened before, of course. Muhammad Ali, bored with the standard old boring boxers of his time that he’d already beaten, opted to go to Japan to take on martial artist Antonio Inoki and he ended up getting kicked in the shins - as he should have been. It was awful.
In a roundabout way, the Usyk-Verhoeven bout is almost a spinoff of Rocky I where the champion decides to grant some old joe, not a top contender, a crack at the coveted crown.
Sylvester Stallone said he got the idea for his movie from Ali giving a title chance to a not-very-deserving challenger Chuck Wepner, the Bayonne Bleeder, who not only did exactly that, he also stepped on Ali’s foot, tripped him and got it scored a knockdown. Not a good fight. Good trivia question, though.
Usyk, at 39, has had only 24 fights - all wins, an unusually low total for a champion. Since he had beaten the previous champ Tyson Fury twice, most recently on December 24 (a close decision that Fury thinks he won) and had evidently spent time in the shadow of the Pyramids and realizes time is marching on. Apparently he figured he ought to grab what cash he can before he hangs it up. After all, how much trouble could this undefeated, slick, shifty southpaw counterpuncher have with a kick boxer in his second professional fight as a actual boxer?
Plenty, as it turned out. For one thing, Verhoeven is built like a tank, if you remember Dallas Cowboys’ defensive lineman Bob Lilly - a guy with huge shoulders, almost as wide as he was tall, an immovable object bearing a constant, inscrutable expression - it was almost as if Verhoeven didn’t understand the physical language of the moment. He’d never fought this way before, thinking with his mitts not his kicks.
What made this interesting is neither did Usyk, who was giving away nearly 30 pounds to the former kick boxing king, who made sure to be the aggressor from the opening bell, while Usyk seemed content to poke a pawing, weak right jab and back up again and again, looking confused.
Typically, Usyk is a slick and effective counterpuncher, letting the other man throw conventional punches that he’d duck, elude or parry and respond with a snappy punch or three. But perhaps because Verhoeven wasn’t trained as a pure boxer and seemed to be twice as wide as Usyk, the Dutchman kept throwing punches to the body, just firing away and Usyk couldn’t find any way to slip the punches. The champ’s body language said “Hey, this guy isn’t fighting me right.” And it was bugging him.
It might have been fun to have the Sphinx judge the fight. It might have been a better decision.
As the rounds mounted, Verhoeven seemed to be winning round after round while Usyk wore a puzzled expression as if he’d never sparred with anyone with a style like this - and, of course, he hadn’t. Verhoeven kept boring in, throwing leather, like he couldn’t think of anything better to do. And Usyk was baffled. The officials’ cards at the conclusion of the fight showed how well Verhoeven had done.
Even the ring announcers, who generally - and often correctly - assume that in a close fight, the champion will get the edge from the officials, spoke about how Usyk was struggling, seemed to be trailing on all cards, couldn’t find his rhythm.
It could also be this: maybe Usyk got old overnight. We’ve seen that in boxing before where all of a sudden, a familiar champ gets into the ring, looks ok physically, but on that night, seemingly before our eyes, gets old. It happened to Joe Louis against Rocky Marciano, it happened to Evander Holyfield vs. Riddick Bowe, it happened to Wladmir Klitschko in losing his title to Tyson Fury, too many rounds, too many punches, too much of everything.
Fortunately for Usyk, in the 11th, after an exciting, back-and-forth slugfest of a round, the champ was able to land a great right uppercut in the final seconds and finally, Verhoeven fell. He got up, Usyk immediately had him pinned in the corner, landed three or four not-particularly-strong shots and surprisingly, Referee Mark Lyson jumped in and stopped it. There was a single second remaining and a whole minute rest period on the other side of that bell.
Later, Teddy Atlas, Mike Tyson’s former trainer, questioned the stoppage but said he thought Usyk would have knocked him out in the next round anyway. Which might well be true. But the stoppage at that point seemed premature and a cry went up from the crowd and the ring announcers, too. Watching the replay, it didn’t seem as bad.
Of course, there was an immediate call for a rematch, something I suspect Usyk will find ways to avoid. He’s 39, hasn’t lost and as a Ukranian, has other, more pressing things on his mind than boxing. Like living.
So maybe he’ll take a hint and hang ‘em up. That would be a wise decision. Though some see him as an all-time great, the truth is, he came along at a good time for a cruiserweight to step up and try heavyweight. It’s hard to imagine him hanging with a George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali or a Larry Holmes. He’d have been a good match for Evander Holyfield, both undersized heavyweights, Holyfield a better puncher, Usyk a better defender. But an all-time great? No.
Boxing being the way it is, more likely, he’ll wait a few more months, let the field sort itself out and see how much he can earn in one more title defense. And I don’t think he’ll be tackling any more kick boxers, not in front of the Pyramids or anywhere else.
Was Verhoeven just better than everybody expected or is Usyk winding down a great - if abbreviated - career? That’d be a good question for the Sphinx, wouldn’t it?
Author John Nogowski has been a fan of boxing since his high school days which coincided with the return to the ring of Muhammad Ali. He’s written often about boxing in his Substack - now in Year Three - and has met and interviewed many of the sports greatest fighters. He’s written two books on baseball - his son is a former major-leaguer, “Diamond Duels” and “Last Time Out,” two books on music: “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography” and the forthcoming “Neil Young: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography,” a book about his experience teaching Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” at a minority Florida high school and is a regular contributor to the Hartford Courant. He’s currently at work on a book about Bruce Springsteen.
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