Oleksandr Usyk vs. Rico Verhoeven Heavyweight Title Boxing Fight Set for Egypt's Pyramids of Giza

The Ring Magazine announced Friday that Oleksandr Usyk and Rico Verhoeven will face off in a WBC world heavyweight title fight at the site of the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt on May 23.

Being billed as "Glory in Giza," the event will air live exclusively on the DAZN streaming platform.

The bout will be a crossover event featuring two of the best from their respective sports, as Usyk is the undisputed heavyweight champion in boxing, and Verhoeven has long considered the top kickboxer in the world.

The 39-year-old Usyk won the Olympic gold medal in heavyweight boxing in 2012, and he has since gone on to post a perfect 24-0 record as a professional boxer.

Usyk won his first major heavyweight titles in 2021 when he beat Anthony Joshua. He defeated Joshua in a subsequent rematch and has bested Tyson Fury and Daniel Dubois two times each since then.

The win over Fury in May 2024 marked the first loss of Fury's career, and it made Usyk undisputed heavyweight champ, as he added the WBC heavyweight title to his WBA (Super), WBO, IBF, IBO and The Ring belts.

After convincingly beating Fury by unanimous decision in a rematch in December 2024, Usyk knocked out Dubois in the fifth round of his most recent bout in July 2025.

The Ukrainian superstar will face a unique challenge from Verhoeven, who is 66-10 in his professional kickboxing career.

A 36-year-old from the Netherlands, Verhoeven has also tried his hand at traditional boxing and mixed martial arts, posting a 1-0 record in each discipline.

His one and only professional boxing match was a second-round knockout of Janos Finfera in 2014.

That would suggest that Usyk will have a huge advantage over Verhoeven when they meet in May, although MMA star Francis Ngannou did push Fury to the limit in a similar scenario in October 2023, so perhaps Verhoeven's chances shouldn't be discounted.