The world’s two top heavyweight kickboxers are set to meet in the ring on Saturday June 21 for what promises to be one of the most explosive clashes of the year.
Daniel Ghita (50-10, 39 KO’s), ranked #1 in the world, and Rico Verhoeven (43-9, 10 KO’s), ranked #2, are former training partners turned rivals. And with the World Heavyweight Championship on the line at GLORY: LAST MAN STANDING, that rivalry has turned increasingly bitter.
In recent weeks it has played out across the news pages, with both giving exclusive interviews to Sherdog.com in which they made frank and unflattering comments about the other.
Ghita labeled Verhoeven a “fake champion” and “boring fighter”; Verhoeven replied by questioning Ghita’s ability to withstand the mental pressures of big fights.
That latest interview of Verhoeven’s made it onto Ghita’s computer screen. While Ghita is a fighter who likes to isolate himself from distractions as fight-night gets closer, he wanted to make some counter-points to Verhoeven’s comments before going into isolation.
“This is really the last time I am going to talk about Rico now because I want my focus to be on the fight from now on. But I saw his interview and I never read anything like this in my life,” he tells Sherdog.
“There are so many lies in there I don’t know where to begin. Rico’s nickname is ‘The Prince’ but with stories like this I think maybe we need to call him ‘Pinocchio’ instead.
“He says that he only learned things from me in the first year of our sparring together and after that I was learning from him?! I can say that I consider the three years I spent sparring with Rico lost time. I ended it because it wasn’t doing anything for me. He isn’t explosive, it became boring.
“He says I am an old man. Why has he taken six months to recover from a hand injury? We were supposed to fight a few months ago but he said he was still waiting for the injury to heal.
“I had a really bad leg injury going into the GLORY 11 event, the doctor wanted me to pull out, and recently we saw Peter Aerts tore his calf muscle in the first round of the fight but continued to the end. This is what real fighters do.
“Rico says he watched [the promo video] and that I don’t train like a real champion. What does that mean? Because I am not playing up for the media I’m not a champion? I don’t understand. I do know that I have more than 80% of my wins by KO and he has around 20%. This is what matters.
“So finally I will say, the only thing that matters is what happens in the ring. I am well-trained and in good condition so in Los Angeles we can meet in the ring and see who the champion really is.”
For one of the two, June 21 will represent a career pinnacle as he takes the grandest prize that heavyweight kickboxing has to offer. Ghita is certain that the belt and the prize money will be his. So certain, in fact, that he already has his next bout planned.
“After Los Angeles I am going to London, England for my next fight,” he laughs. “It will be with Pierre Andurand”. He has been training hard recently.
“His background is in oil trading but he has some good kickboxing skill also. He’s a heavyweight too. He laid down the challenge so I’m going to go to London and we will go to his gym and meet in the ring for some fun.”
