Rico Verhoeven (44-9, 10 KOâs) believes his win over Daniel Ghita (50-11, 39 KOâs) at GLORY: LAST MAN STANDING on June 21 has drawn a line under their rivalry.
âFor me it was a moment to show that I am the undisputed number one right now, without a doubt. After our first fight people said Daniel got robbed and this and that. This time it was without doubt, I was the clear winner,â he says.
Their first encounter, which took place at GLORY 10 in the final of the 2013 Heavyweight Championship Tournament, produced an explosive fight with an extremely close decision.
The second time around things were more clear cut, though Ghitaâs unusual tactics - he stalled the first two rounds, later explaining he wanted to âdraw Rico outâ - proved puzzling for many. Verhoeven was one of them.
âHe was just waiting. It was weird. I was like what are you waiting for? Even in the fourth round he was waiting and he was already two or three rounds behind. I donât really understand what his gameplan was but that isnât my business,â he says.
âI just concentrate on my own gameplan. What we trained, worked, so Iâm happy with that. I donât know what his gameplan was but one thing is for sure - it didnât work.â
Despite being pleased with his gameplan, Verhoeven doesnât give himself straight Aâs for the fight.
âI donât think it was my best fight overall but in terms of tactics and fighting smart it was one of my best performances,â he says.
âPhysically I wasnât at my best, I got ill one week before the fight, so that meant in the fifth round I wasnât able to up the pace the same way that I did in Chicago. But I still kept a good pace throughout the fight.â
Only one thing soured Verhoevenâs mood after the win: an accusation that he had made racist comments against Romanians during the pre-fight build up.
The controversy started when Ghita posted a message on his Facebook account claiming that Verhoeven had declared him to be a gypsy whilst being interviewed on American television.
Actually what had happened was that interviewer Bas Rutten, a former fighter and a Dutchman himself, had picked out some tweets of Ghitaâs and mocked them, claiming he was unable to decipher their meaning because of the broken English they were typed in.
Verhoeven laughed and replied, âYeah, itâs like old Egyptian or somethingâ, referring to the hieroglyphics found on the monuments and tombs of Ancient Egypt.
But Ghita misheard. He thought Verhoeven had said ââŠlike a gypsyâ and, with Romania having a large Romani Gypsy population, believed he or his country had been insulted in some fashion.
Ghitaâs comments on the matter were posted on his own Facebook account and in Romanian, so they werenât picked up on by the wider English-language fight media. But they still caused ripples.
âPeople did notice it, definitely. It was on a Dutch fighting forum and I had people sending me private messages on Facebook about being a racist. I think Daniel doesnât realize what impact he has when he says something like that,â sighs Verhoeven.
âI tried not to let it bother me but I would have expected at least an apology or an explanation to his fans that he didnât understand what I said correctly.â
Verhoeven declared the beef with Ghita to be over during the LAST MAN STANDING post-fight press conference, but still feels bitterness from the opposing side. âI think heâs just angry he didnât win and that maybe his time at the top level of kickboxing is coming to a close. I think he is just frustrated,â he shrugs.
With the Ghita rivalry in the past - at least for now - Verhoeven is looking forward to the future. He awaits a date and an opponent from GLORY: âI am ready to get back in there and I am ready to fight anyone, I donât care who it is.â
LAST MAN STANDING, which originally aired on pay-per-view only, airs free this Friday on Spike TV from 10PM ET.
