At a glance
- Roles
- athlete
- Region
- al-Andalus & Europe
- Identifiers
- Wikidata
- Review
Life in time
Place in the story
Unknown (unknown)
Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.
Summary
Ricardo "Rico" Verhoeven is a Dutch kickboxer, professional boxer and mixed martial artist, born in Bergen op Zoom on 10 April 1989. Known as the "King of Kickboxing", he was Glory's longest-reigning heavyweight champion: he held the title for 4,220 days and defended it a record thirteen times, and Combat Press has ranked him the world's number one heavyweight kickboxer since September 2014. 1 2
Career
Verhoeven began martial arts at the age of one, learning Kyokushin from his father, a karate black belt, and took up kickboxing at seven, fighting adults from the age of sixteen because of his size. A professional since 2004, he also fought for K-1, It's Showtime and Superkombat. In Glory he compiled 66 wins against 10 losses and set the promotion's records for wins in title bouts, consecutive defences and total wins. In 2026 he crossed into championship boxing, challenging Oleksandr Usyk for the WBC heavyweight title at the Giza Plateau in Egypt; the Arabic article records that he lost by technical knockout in the eleventh round. He also won his single mixed martial arts bout by knockout and has acted in film. 1 3
In the record
Sources
- Rico Verhoeven — English Wikipedia
- Rico Verhoeven — Wikidata Q7332289
- ريكو فيرهوفن — Arabic Wikipedia
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Rico Verhoeven”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/rico-verhoeven/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-26.