The long-reigning heavyweight king of kickboxing Rico Verhoeven desires a match in opposition to Francis Ngannou, the lineal UFC champion and present PFL heavyweight titleholder. This is able to be a battle of fight sports activities superstars.
Rico Verhoeven vs. Francis Ngannou
The Dutch-born Rico Verhoeven has held the GLORY heavyweight kickboxing world title for a decade and has an unimaginable 11 title defenses to his identify. Alongside the way in which, he’s defeated unimaginable fighters akin to Badr Hari, Jamal Ben Saddik, and plenty of others. Earlier this yr he defeated three opponents in a single night time to seize the Grand Prix title. Now, he’ll look to defend his throne at Glory Collision 7, on December 7, in opposition to Levi Rigters.
Cameroon’s Francis Ngannou entered the UFC and shortly made a reputation for himself because of his fearsome energy. He captured the heavyweight crown with a sequence of knockout wins and defended his UFC earlier than leaving the group. He then took on blockbuster boxing matches in opposition to heavyweight boxing royalty earlier than capturing the PFL MMA world title by first-round knockout.
Each Rico Verhoeven and Francis Ngannou have expertise throughout a number of fight sports activities; every man has competed on the skilled degree throughout Kickboxing, MMA, and boxing. Nonetheless, Ngannou has way more expertise in MMA whereas Verhoeven has way more expertise in kickboxing.
Rico Verhoeven mentioned the match with me in an interview, he defined:
“I would love that. That would definitely make sense, especially if we’re talking about the baddest man on the planet. Absolutely. Yeah, I think we’re both in that conversation. MMA, boxing, and kickboxing—let’s throw everybody in one jar and put them all together. Let’s do it!”
Each the PFL and GLORY would seemingly be okay doing a crossover occasion, however selecting the correct rules can be a problem. As for the principles and gloves, Verhoeven is prepared for something. He continued:
“Let’s see what they offer and what they have in mind. A boxing match would be nice. It would be interesting because we both come out of our own worlds and do something else. Of course, in MMA, he would have an advantage. In kickboxing, I would have the advantage. Let’s see.”
Curiously, Ngannou and Verhoevern have truly skilled collectively earlier than. The Dutch striker stated:
“The training we had was so light, it was just fun. I was in town, and we were just hanging out. I know Eric is his trainer, and he’s really good. We just had fun, showed him some stuff I use within kickboxing, and yeah, we just hung out.”
Francis Ngannou at present has no match scheduled within the close to future. Rico Verhoeven is trying to cement his place as an all-time nice in kickboxing with one other protection of his title booked for December 7 at Glory Collision 7 going through the harmful kicker Levi Rigters.
