Heavyweight legend Alistair Overeem offered an explanation of why it would be a bad idea for kickboxing champion Rico Verhoeven to step inside the cage against ex-UFC champ Francis Ngannou.
When it comes to kickboxing, there are very few men on the planet who can hang with Verhoeven. He’s an elite striker who hasn’t lost since 2015 and is hours away from taking on the best heavyweight boxer in the world, Oleksandr Usyk.
Overeem, who won K-1 kickboxing gold amid a championship-level MMA career, knows a thing or two about evaluating the differences between the sports. When asked about the recent talks of Verhoeven meeting Ngannou in an MMA fight, Overeem sees the fight heavily in favor of the former UFC champ.
“I think against Francis, he would not make much of a chance,” Overeem said on “The Ariel Helwani Show.” “Just basically because he’s missing the wrestling and the submissions. He’s just not training that, right? It takes years to develop that, and it should be underestimated, and I think that he and his team have made a wise choise to kind of stay out of MMA, ’cause you’re just not gonna catch up with that years of experience just like that in a training camp. … Francis Ngannou is totally a no-go area. Stay away from that.”
Given the additional tools available in MMA that could drastically change a fight in an instant, Overeem likes Verhoeven’s chances to achieve his goals of becoming a bigger household name in the boxing ring instead. Saturday at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, Verhoeven will get that chance if he can pull off a massive upset against Usyk.
Everything is about legacy for the 39-year-old. Verhoeven recently revealed he would have earned more money for facing Ngannou on Netflix’s Most Valuable Promotions debut MMA event, but he opted to take on the bigger name in Usyk instead. Overeem agrees that it was a smart move, because even though he’s a massive underdog against Usyk, dealing with Ngannou in MMA would have been a near-impossible task.
“Francis is clever,” Overeem said. “He’s just going to win the fight, and it would not be even a difficult fight.”
