Rico
Verhoeven only wants the concerned parties to admit that they
made a mistake in his controversial loss against Oleksandr
Usyk.
Verhoeven challenged Usyk for the WBC heavyweight title last
weekend in front of the Pyramids in Giza, Egypt. Verhoeven clearly
outclassed Usyk for most of the fight and appeared to be on his way
to shock the world with a massive upset. However, Usyk dropped
Verhoeven with an uppercut in the final seconds of the 11th round.
While Verhoeven returned to his feet, Usyk backed him up with a
barrage of shots, which was enough for referee Mark Lyson to step
in with a second left in the round.
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If the last-second stoppage wasn’t controversial enough, rumors
also suggest that Lyson stopped the fight after the bell.
Verhoeven’s coach, Peter Fury, claims Lyson even admitted his
mistake on their flight back home. Verhoeven believes that to err
is human. However, he wants Lyson to merely admit his mistake and
apologize.
“He can say, ‘You guys are right. I made a mistake.’ And that’s a
fair point, that can happen. Everybody is human,” Verhoeven said on
“The Ariel Helwani Show” “There’s always room
for mistakes. Admit those mistakes, apologize, and let’s continue
from there.”
The Reason Behind the Appeal
The open-scoring bout showed the fighters the judges’ scorecards
after every four rounds. Despite feeling like he was evidently
leading, Verhoeven surprisingly saw that the scorecards were even
both times they were shown. Verhoeven believes, with him originally
being a kickboxer, the bout was scored with a “protective”
standpoint for boxing. Verhoeven has now filed a review appeal with
the Middle East Professional Boxing Commission. Verhoeven expects
nothing more from the appeal than an apology from the involved
parties.
“That’s why we appealed it,” Verhoeven said. “All they can say is,
‘Okay, Rico, we apologize. We should have done better; we made a
mistake.’ That’s all you can ask for. You can’t sit here, be angry,
and waste all your energy on that. It’s not gonna change the
outcome. It’s not gonna make me feel better.”