Meet the Fighter – Rico Verhoeven

The first thing people notice about Rico Verhoeven (40-9-0, 10 KOs) is his size. The 24-year-old Dutchman is absolutely huge, with shovels for hands and calves the same size as most people’s thighs.

This alone would make him a handful in the ring. Now combine it with the fact that he has been training with serious focus since ten years old and is very, very fast for a man of his build and you can see why Verhoeven is getting a lot of attention.

His nickname is ‘The Prince’ and it suits, because a lot of people think it is only a matter of time before he is the new heavyweight king.

On June 22 in New York, USA he will face one-time GLORY heavyweight title challenger Errol Zimmerman, a fearsome power-puncher. A Verhoeven win will inject him into the title-shot conversation.

Rico, you are part of the SuperPro team under noted trainer Dennis Krauweel (Albert Kraus, Daniel Ghita, Shemsi Beqiri). I know that the heavyweight boxing contender Tyson Fury also trains there. Have you had a good preparation for GLORY 9?

Training is going perfect, we have had a great preparation. I’ve been sparring with Tyson Fury, Daniel Ghita, some kickboxers from Russia, some Romanian guys. It’s all been at the SuperPro gym here in Holland with my coach Dennis Krauweel.

You fought Zimmerman in January 2012 and lost by a quick KO in the first round. Did you learn enough that time to formulate a strategy for this rematch or have you been studying tape of him?

Yeah of course. Like any opponent you check YouTube, you watch videos, you see what the guy does and you make a strategy.

This interview is going to be published before the fight? Then no I’m not going to say anything about the strategy, ha! I will only say that it’s going to be finished inside the three rounds and it’s going to be exciting.

What’s your opinion of Zimmerman as a fighter?

I think he is an OK fighter but I think he is not all-rounded and he is not the perfect example of a real athlete. He is a good fighter and has a natural talent. All these years he has been quite up there but not fully on top.

He is good but he is not the best and he is never going to be the best because he doesn’t have the athlete/sportsman mentality. He has a good punch but he is not well-rounded.

I think if somebody doesn’t have that drive, that mentality, to take the sport seriously… he is 27 years old now, it’s never going to come. If it wasn’t there a few years ago it’s still not going to be there now. And all those years partying and everything… it’s possible now he has been focused, training hard for this last three months for this fight but that still won’t make you the real athlete that I am.

I’ve been focusing on this forever. I am never in the nightclubs. Maybe five times in one year. And if it’s five times in one year that’s a lot for me. We have a totally different mentality about this. If he doesn’t have a fight coming up he is partying and everything whereas even if I don’t have a fight coming up I am in the gym, working hard and keeping busy.

You’re only a young guy. It is difficult for you to maintain this discipline while all your friends are out partying, holidaying and so on?

Yeah that’s the thing, I am an athlete from morning until night. I have a few friends I am really close with and they know how my life runs. So they hang out with me at home or we go to the movies, go paintballing or go-karting, we have fun.

Sometimes when I don’t have a fight coming up we can go out, but for me going out is not a focus. For me the career is the main focus. I know what I want and I know what I want to accomplish. If I want to accomplish that I have to train hard and keep my focus on the mission.

I have a girlfriend, I have a small daughter, two years old, so when I have time off I spend time with them and the family, just have fun and relax.

Having fought in Japan on New Year’s Eve and now making your US debut, are you living the dream right now?

Yeah no question about it.

You know, I was six or seven years old and I watched the television and I saw Peter Aerts on the television and it just gave me a rush. I was like, “This is what I want!” I want people to be just as excited when they see me as I was when I saw Peter fight.

I wanted to be a top fighter like him and so this is all just a dream come true for me. But the dream now is I want to be the best. I want to show everyone that I am the best and I want to be on top.

Did you watch Peter Aerts’ fight with Jamal Ben Saddik at GLORY 8 recently? That was literally one of the craziest fights in kickboxing history.

It was an awesome fight. At first I thought it was going to be tough for Peter and it was going hard for him in the first round, he was knocked around the ring.

But then you could see that he had the experience of over 100 fights so he came back into it! Peter hit him a few times and knocked him back and then you could see Peter was like, ‘This is my fight now, I can win this’. And he just ran over Jamal. Crazy fight!

Peter said afterwards that Jamal’s left hook popped his eardrum early in the first round, affecting his balance, and that he was mad when he got back to his corner that he told them, “Kickboxing is out the window, this is going to be a street fight.

For the public it was just perfect to see. Everyone was saying ‘Why doesn’t Peter stop fighting, he has been everywhere and done everything’ or things like, ‘He should stop fighting because he is not the Peter that he was’ - and then he made a performance like this and showed everybody what he is about.

It’s the kind of fight that gets people hooked on this sport. GLORY is making its US debut next week; do you think the US fans are going to embrace it?

I think GLORY is going to be as big as the UFC. I hope it’s going to be as big or bigger. I hope the US fans are going to love us as much as they love the UFC. It’s a little bit different of course, it’s pure stand-up fighting, we entertain you with everything we have got and I hope they will see that and they will show us love.

You’re ranked number four in the world and getting closer to that title contention spot. Who do you think is the guy you’ve really got to beat to confirm yourself as the top contender?

[long pause]. Saki. And Ghita is there as well.

You train with Ghita; is it not going to be difficult to face each other in the ring?

Yeah we have been training together but me and Ghita, about this issue, we are on the same page. Fighting is our business. We are fighting for a living and so if we have to fight each other its OK, it’s strictly business. Afterwards we are friends. If you are a professional you have to draw a line in your mind and accept that there is the possibility to fight each other. If it happens, it happens and we just have to do what we do best: entertain people.

What do your parents think of your chosen career?

It was actually my father who got me into it because he was a Kyokushin Karate guy before he got into teaching kickboxing. He was doing karate for 16 years but got a seriously bad injury in his leg, he was in the hospital for a while.

Then he was boxing until his leg was recovered. After that he was doing kickboxing and while he was doing that people said he should also be teaching, because he had a lot of experience in the fight game. And so from that point he started teaching people.

I was like six years old and I was at the gym with him, I started training for fun and then at seven or eight years old I did my first demonstration match. Then from there I was doing junior matches and stuff until I was twelve or thirteen years old. But it was a problem because - you’ve seen me - I was very big and very heavy for my age.

Were you big like now or were you just a fat kid?

Haha, I was big! Not as muscular as I am now but I was big. So it was pretty difficult to get fights for a young big guy like me. So my father said no problem just keep training and when you are 16 you can go in the adult division and you will get enough fights.

But training without having a match coming up can be quite difficult. In the summer my friends would go to the park or the pool in the evening but my father would pull me to the gym. “No you’re not going out, you’re coming to the gym”.

Sometimes it was quite difficult for me to keep motivated to fight but then I turned 16 and two weeks later I had my first adult match. I faced a guy who was 28 years old and I knocked him out in the second round. That was when my career really started.

Do you come from a family of huge guys, is your size genetic?

My father is not that big. My uncle is quite tall but not really muscular. And my great-grandfather, I never knew him, but he was quite a big guy, pretty tall and muscular, so I think it’s his genes I have. And he was also a boxer, not professionally but he has some fights and stuff.

Your fight is on June 22. When did you travel to the US?

I’m in Miami one week before, to get some training and get used to the time difference. I am at the Blackzilians, I’ve been there before in January when Alistair was going to fight Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva, we did some sparring. Also GLORY lightweight contender Robin van Roosmalen is there, he is spending some time out there.

Speaking of The Blackzilians, I saw after you smashed Jhonata Diniz at GLORY 8, people on the message boards were saying you looked like ‘a white Alistair Overeem’ in the ring.

Ha! If they put me and Alistair next to each other they will see Alistair is like three times bigger than I am. He is just huge. But I am much better looking!