Photo via PJ Roca/ Glory/ Lana/ Jon Martone
Rico Verhoeven on Alistair Overeem’s unique attributes as a Glory contender
Rico Verhoeven defends his Glory world heavyweight title against former K1 World Grand Prix champion Alistair Overeem. It all goes down on October 23rd from GelreDome in Arnhem, Netherlands.
Verhoeven enters this bout on the heels of winning Glory’s recent four-man heavyweight tournament in January this year at Glory 77. He bears the moniker of The King of Kickboxing and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who disagrees.
A victory over Alistair Overeem here would mark Verhoeven’s tenth successful defense of his Glory Kickboxing heavyweight world championship. The Glory stalwart looks to take out the former Strikeforce as well as Dream heavyweight champion as Overeem makes his Glory debut and dons the big gloves again.
Rico Verhoeven has accumulated a winning streak of fourteen straight fights and has not tasted defeat in close to seven years.
The hulking heavyweight has nearly sixty professional kickboxing contests on his resume.
I spoke with Verhoeven ahead of this championship bout.
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The transcription of my interaction with the reigning and defending Glory heavyweight champion at the Collision 3 presser is below.
Rico Verhoeven
What’s a unique stylistic variable that Overeem brings to the table as compared to the myriad of opponents you faced previously?
“Yeah, that’s a good question. I think that he brings a different style. He doesn’t bring the basic sense of kickboxing to the ring. So that makes analyzing and anticipating how the fight is going to roll out, a little bit different. So that’s what we just try to work with. Because like you said he’s been in MMA for years. He did some kickboxing. So he brings a little bit of both worlds together. Which makes his fighting style a little bit unorthodox, from what normal kickboxers would do and how they would move. So yeah, let’s see how he comes in the 23rd.”
