Kickboxer Verhoeven to appeal the result of the fight with Usyk

Dutch kickboxer Rico Verhoeven has appealed the refereeʼs decision to award him a technical knockout in his fight against Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk.

He reported this on his Instagram.

"The official protest was filed during our journey to the airport. Rules only matter when they are used at the most necessary moment," Verhoeven wrote in his stories.

The Usyk-Verhoeven fight, which took place on the night of May 24 at the Giza Arena, ended prematurely. One second before the end of the 11th round, the referee ended the tight fight with a technical knockout of Verhoeven, writes "Suspilne Sport".

Despite the outcome, Verhoeven was leading at the end of the fight according to the judgesʼ scores: one judge gave him a slight advantage, while two others recorded a draw. Verhoeven also had a slight advantage over Usyk in punch statistics.

After the fight, Verhoeven accused the referee of ending the fight prematurely. In his opinion, the judge should have allowed the fight to go the full distance of 12 rounds.

• For kickboxer Verhoeven, the fight with Usyk was his second in professional boxing. At the same time, for the Ukrainian, it was the first fight in his career, which he ended with a technical knockout.
• Thus, Usyk retained his WBC and IBF heavyweight world champion belt and received the exclusive WBC “King of the Nile” belt. This is already Usyk’s 25th victory in the professional ring.

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