Rico Verhoeven was about 25 lbs heavier than Oleksandr Usyk on the scales today in Egypt, ahead of their heavyweight title fight tomorrow at the pyramids in Giza.
“The King of Kickboxing” weighed in at 258.7 lbs, with Usyk at 233.3. Usyk will be defending his WBC heavyweight title, and can also lose the WBA title — though Rico would not win it — if Verhoeven wins the fight.
Despite the size “advantage” for Verhoeven, we still can’t see him as anything more than a major underdog. He’s not an experienced
pro boxer, and he’s also hardly the first person to have a weight advantage over Usyk, who has been the smaller man by weight in every one of his nine fights in the heavyweight division, including this one.
What may be worth noting is that at 233.3 lbs, Usyk is heavier on the scales than he’s ever been before. When he moved up to heavyweight in 2019, he weighed in at 215. Since then, he’s been at 217, 221, 221, 221, 223, 226, and 227.
There were no issues for weights on the undercard. Hamzah Sheeraz and Alem Begic both came in under the 168 lb limit for their vacant WBO super middleweight title fight; Jack Catterall and Shakhram Giyasov are set for what is essentially a WBA welterweight eliminator, but will be for the “vacant” “title” that isn’t really a title, but could be if Rolly Romero doesn’t take the order to fight the winner; Frank Sanchez came in at 240.4 and Richard Torrez Jr at 229.5 for their IBF heavyweight eliminator; and Mizuki Hiruta and Mai Soliman are good to go for their fight, which will be for Hiruta’s WBO super flyweight title.
