With Rico Verhoeven on the biggest stage of his career this weekend when he takes on champion Oleksandr Usyk for heavyweight glory in Egypt, DAZN takes fans behind the scenes of Verhoeven’s training camp where he’s been working alongside trainer Peter Fury for what’s to come.
Fury would reflect on linking up with Verhoeven many years back in the gym and how their relationship naturally progressed from there.
“I think you become closer from knowing each other and being respectful, you become closer,”
Fury said. “That’s how we’ve been since we met, so we’ve always been together.”
Verhoeven would also share his perspective on his alignment with Fury and tailoring their preparations for a boxing match against the obvious cream of the crop in Usyk.
“Starting this whole adventure, it’s like we got to take a different approach,” Verhoeven said. “I think we found our sweet spot in kickboxing, like if we use this approach, this works.’ We know how to get fit, we know how to keep the knife sharpened — that works to stay the best, and that’s what we did. But this, again, was something different. This whole approach was different. I don’t know if it was ‘more serious,’ but it needed to be more intense to get everything out of me.
“I think advantages you have as a kickboxer getting into boxing is that boxing is what I feel — it’s my opinion — it’s much more of a controlled environment, especially in the beginning…It’s a different approach and I think that gives you more mental toughness in the later fights.”
You can check out the full video interview with Verhoeven and his trainers before this Saturday’s big event in front of the pyramids.
