Rico Verhoeven nearly pulled off the upset of the century against Oleksandr Usyk before having his dreams heartbreakingly taken from him. So, let’s talk about that, plus Brand Risk 14, and more.
Rico Verhoeven vs. Oleksandr Usyk
Why is there such a disconnect between fan perception and the judges/media scorecards in the Usyk Verhoeven fight? The fan perception is that Rico was dominating, but the judges had it even or close to before the 11th, as did the MMA Fighting and ESPN live blogs. If it had gone to decision, Usyk likely wins. Are the judges and the media all wrong, or are fans overreacting to Rico overperforming so dramatically?
At times like this, I often think of a quote from Men In Black: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it.
In questions like this, the answer is almost always “fans are overreacting,” and it’s the same here. At the time of the stoppage, I had Rico up 6-4. One of the judges agreed with me, and two disagreed on one round. The margins are fine, and it’s not egregious to have the fight even there, or to have Rico up 7-3. Boxing always has a lot of close rounds.
But that’s the reality of actually watching the fight with a discerning eye, while for most fans, that sort of thing takes a backseat to the story. Rico was a monstrous underdog, yet here he was putting on the performance of his life and giving the world champion a hard battle. This was supposed to be a walkover for Usyk, and it was not remotely that, so every punch Rico lands feels bigger, every close round goes his way, because of the narrative. And then you have Mike Coppinger’s unofficial scorecard looking completely one-sided, and things metastasize. And then things really go to hell when the referee makes an egregiously bad stoppage.
My feeling on the fight is that on the biggest stage, with the biggest opportunity before him, Rico Verhoeven put on the best performance of his life. It wasn’t just that he was overachieving or that Usyk took him lightly (I definitely think he did), he had a good game plan and was executing it well, better than most have ever done against Usyk. But even with all of that, Usyk is still an all-time great, and though the stoppage was indefensible, Usyk was going to win anyway, either by finish in the 12th, or on the cards.
Still, there’s a ubiquitous saying we tell children growing up, that I feel like people completely forget about as they get older: it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Rico Verhoeven lost, but hot damn did he play as well as he could. Usyk may have won the fight, but Rico won the night.
Are we going to see an influx of kickboxers into boxing or MMA with Rico’s moral victory?
We’ve been seeing a steady trickle into MMA over the past few years, and even some movement into boxing. I think boxing will likely still be fairly muted, as, frankly, the skill level for success in boxing is higher. But given the relatively low pay that comes in kickboxing, plenty of kickboxers are going to try to move over into more lucrative fields if they can.
Don’t expect all of them to be Rico or Poatan, though.
With the UFC doing shows in The Sphere and the White House, what are some outside-the-box places you’d like to see an MMA event take place?
When the Usyk vs. Verhoeven fight was announced for the Pyramids at Giza, I immediately thought: “White House, Pyramids, where else can we go?” and pitched that BKFC should hold a card at Stonehenge. I stand by that idea 100 percent.
But we can do so much more. If I were in charge of the PFL, this would legitimately be a goal of mine for the company: once or twice a year, do a big event with some global landmark in the background. Let’s Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego this ish!
Aside from Stone Henge, the first and most obvious choice is one the UFC even flirted with for a moment — for the proposed Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg fight — The Colosseum. That one is so obvious that it’s almost too on the nose, but still would be a perfect idea. And from there, we can build toward Chichen Itza for a Mexican Independence Day card, the Great Wall of China, Petra, the Taj Mahal, Easter Island, etc. All of these are layups!
But if we’re really feeling frisky, how about Gobekli Tepe? One of the oldest known human structures for the oldest human activity. Now we’re cooking with gas.
What’s the deal with ovaltine?
What’s your perspective on “damage” in reference to grappling. As a college wrestler of course I have biases. I despise top control with positional control focused on with no striking or sub attempts, or attempts with no chance. I’ve talked to the screen, or yelled every event for hellbows or punches.
But I feel it also gets downgraded similar to low kicks. Even a striker like Strickland or Diaz vs a power puncher. They lose rounds while taxing the energy , lose the first few rounds on cards, yet it’s known that is such a priority weapon in their arsenal. I sincerely love seeing someone drown a professional fighter. See them chip away till an opponent gives. You can feel it when you watch.
Does the damage to cardio or fighting spirit technically mean nothing?
It doesn’t mean nothing, but it’s extremely low on the priority scale; that’s how it feels. Per the letter of the rules, it shouldn’t be, but in practice, it’s much harder to weigh “he seems tired” compared to “he got mashed in the face,” and so it’s just never going to be treated commensurately.
My belief is an unpopular one: prioritizing damage to the exclusion of anything else is silly. If someone has back mount for four minutes and 30 seconds, but lands no strikes, and the other person lands five good punches in the remaining 30 seconds, the guy with dominant, asymmetrical control should win the round. That’s intuitive to me, but it is ultimately a preference and not a fact. You can prefer it be all about damage, and I can’t say you’re wrong. It’s just a matter of taste.
Ultimately, I think incentivizing fighters to hurt opponents and not just play a game is good for the sport. I just feel we’ve gone a bit too far in terms of penalizing dominant grapplers for my taste. Because in the end, I tend to come down on the side of, if you were in a schoolyard, who does everyone think won the fight? But that’s just me.
Also, Ovaltine is not my cup of hot chocolate.
Was Ray J vs. Supah Hot Fire fixed?
Ray J seemed upset at the end at Mr. SHF for not sticking to a plan and exclaimed that they both had lost.
Who would you matchmake Ray J against next? Ne-Yo? Slim from 112? Or maybe the white whale is Chris Brown?
Yeaaaaah, the Ray J thing at the end was super weird. Maybe it was all just a bit from Ray J, but he certainly was acting like they had a plan, and SHF went away from the plan. And given how weird the first round of that fight was, let’s just say you could convince me things weren’t all on the up and up.
Also – did you catch Sean Strickland dropping the n word?
Sure did. Not gonna dive into all of the Sean Strickland of it because I don’t need that headache, but man, he was certainly on one when he was in the commentary booth. In literally any other sport, Strickland would be getting suspended for conduct.
My biggest takeaway is that it just wasn’t good.
More broadly, what were your takeaways/intrusive thoughts from Saturday’s dark dystopian event that is BrandRisk?
For those of you who don’t know, I’m not some kind of stuck-up MMA snob. I was literally one of the loudest voices in support of Fight Circus during their early events, and I had a great time watching the carnival that is Dogfight Wild Tournament this past weekend. I love me some nonsense fighting. But Brand Risk is simply not for me.
First, it was incredibly long. The pacing was a nightmare, and it was made all the worse by the inclusion of “real” boxing matches on the undercard, as if anyone was tuning in for that. Then the MMA stuff was mostly very stupid, and made worse by Adin Ross apparently knowing nothing about fighting, but commentating the whole thing. Then you had the in-ring interviewer who was wildly annoying. At least with Misfits Boxing, there is some level of professionalism involved, and they probably wouldn’t let Strickland go off unfiltered.
Not everything was bad. The little people fight was actually pretty good, and there was a cool KO or two, but mostly this was just an Adin Ross live stream, and that’s not for me. If you like it, that’s your prerogative, but I think I’m past the age where I find the general vibe of that whole thing to be amusing.
Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who sent in questions! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because every week I put a prompt into The Feed for your questions. Fire them into there, and I’ll answer the best ones in the Mailbag, and try to get to the rest in the responses.
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