Why Naoya Inoue Was the Real Winner of Oleksandr Usyk vs Rico Verhoeven

After knocking out Daniel Dubois for the second time in two years to reclaim the undisputed heavyweight titles, nobody was certain what would come next for Oleksandr Usyk. It ended up being a crossover fight with kickboxing king Rico Verhoeven, whom Usyk stopped to retain his status atop the division.

But while everyone expected Usyk to finish Verhoeven, not a soul expected the fight to go the way it did. Verhoeven, the 9-1 underdog, surprisingly took control of the fight from the opening bell and established a physical presence in the ring. Fatigue eventually caught up with him, allowing Usyk to reclaim a few lost rounds before the fight's abrupt end.

Then came the stoppage heard around the world, which caused one of the biggest uproars from the fan base in recent boxing history. The vast majority of viewers, including Turki Alalshikh, criticized it as hasty and deemed it erroneous due to the referee stepping in a second after the bell sounded to signal the end of the round.

ABSOLUTE CHAOS 😱 USYK STOPS RICO!!!#UsykRico pic.twitter.com/3OHnaXPUv5
— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) May 24, 2026

Usyk emerged victorious to remain undefeated, but the unexpected competitiveness and the way the fight ended could not have gone much worse for him. While the champion can easily redeem himself in his next fight, his stock takes a significant hit in the meantime.

Conversely, Verhoeven comes out of the fight shining like a star and with most of the combat sports world now firmly in his corner. His performance has potentially earned him a rematch with Usyk to net another lucrative payday.

Yet even with the positive outcomes Verhoeven has earned, he is not the biggest winner of the night. Nobody gained more from the 'Glory in Giza' fallout than Naoya Inoue.

Naoya Inoue was real winner of Usyk-Verhoeven

Although Inoue's focus has been on Junto Nakatani for months, he must at least have been keeping Usyk-Verhoeven in his peripheral vision. With Terence Crawford out of the picture, the pound-for-pound debate has been whittled down to Usyk and Inoue, two long-reigning champions who both competed in May.

Inoue had the much more challenging fight with Nakatani, who entered the matchup with a pristine 32-0 record and the former WBC, IBF and The Ring bantamweight champion. Many viewed the Japanese super fight as an even matchup, but Inoue made one of the toughest challenges of his career look relatively easy.

The win was already enough to bump Inoue up to No. 1 pound-for-pound over Usyk in the Ring Magazine rankings. But in terms of public perception, the debate was still very much alive.

INOUE IS THE NEW POUND-FOR-POUND KING 👑

Naoya Inoue claims the #1 spot after his win over Junto Nakatani last Saturday 😤 pic.twitter.com/R9en5zpCg7
— Ring Magazine (@ringmagazine) May 4, 2026

Now, just three weeks later, Usyk and Verhoeven should have put the discussion to rest. Perhaps Usyk overlooked Verhoeven, or maybe Father Time finally caught up with the 39-year-old. In either scenario, Usyk now has a lot of ground to cover to reclaim pound-for-pound No. 1 status over Inoue.

With Usyk rumored to be out until 2027, he could feasibly drop even further in the rankings before his next outing. The Ukrainian will have to hope his impressive body of work will still hold up over the surging David Benavidez, Jesse 'Bam' Rodriguez and Shakur Stevenson, who have all been linked to big fights potentially looming in the coming months.

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