UFC heavyweight star Derrick Lewis has revealed that he was almost lined up to fight kickboxing ace Rico Verhoeven at UFC 324 next month.
“The [UFC said] ‘we got something big for you’… It was supposed to be some dude from Glory, Rico [Verhoeven],” Lewis said on ‘The Beast & The Cowboy’ podcast. “Then he turned the fight down.”
Instead ‘The Black Beast’ will now be fighting the in-form Waldo Cortes-Acosta at UFC 324, which will mark the first event of the UFC’s new Paramount+ broadcasting deal.
The prospect of the 36-year-old Verhoeven fighting in the UFC is still very intriguing though as he’s been a huge star in the kickboxing world over the years, including being Glory’s longest-running heavyweight champion (13 fights) before opting to end his 12-year reign by vacating the belt earlier this year.
It’s not clear why Verhoeven turned down the chance to fight Lewis, but it could have something to do with the fact that he’s being rumored as a potential next opponent for heavyweight boxing star Anthony Joshua after his jaw-dismantling KO win over Jake Paul on Netflix at the weekend.
“We’ve been talking about a possible fight with Turki Alalshikh [for February],” Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn said at a recent press conference regarding Joshua’s next fight. “A couple of opponents mentioned. The biggest challenge now is that it’s eight weeks [from] tonight. He had a very tough camp, eight or nine weeks, with a new team, who gave him a good working over.”
Hearn then went on to specifically mention Verhoeven.
“So, we will sit down with that team and talk about when he will be ready to return. In an ideal world, that would be the time. We’re going to see when he’s ready. Rico [Verhoeven], or whoever it is, we haven’t finalized that yet. But the date is really what we are going to work on over the next four, five, six days. Because we’re not going to rush him back if he’s not quite ready. But it won’t be long. The plan is to fight in the spring, and then obviously fight Tyson Fury.”
In all fairness, Joshua vs. Verhoeven is certainly a bigger and more lucrative fight for the kickboxer, so it’s understandable if that’s the path he chooses to go down, though hopefully that won’t rule out the possibility of him coming to the UFC at some stage in the not-so-distant future as he’d be a very intriguing addition to the heavyweight roster.
