Antônio Pezão faces world champion under kickboxing rules

Verhoeven (left) catches Pezão (right) in October (Photo: Reproduction Twitter ricoverhoeven)

Despite being a jiu-jitsu black belt and having spent most of his career fighting MMA, Antonio Pezão will have a different challenge in his next fight: the Brazilian will face Rico Verhoeven, simply the current heavyweight champion of Glory, one of the biggest striking organizations in the world, in the event's debut in China, which takes place on October 14th, in the city from Guangzhou.

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The duel will be under Glory's rules, that is, no MMA for Pezão. The fight with the Dutchman will not count for the Glory heavyweight title, currently held by Verhoeven. The two appeared at a press conference to announce the event and had a tense look. Behind the scenes, however, the Brazilian showed respect to his next opponent and the two even posed together.

“Very happy and excited about this newest experience. I have been involved in martial art since I was five years old, I love what I do and what God gave me as a gift. Much respect to my next opponent, the great champion Rico Verhoeven, but on October 14th there will be two men in the ring coming up short”, commented the Brazilian through his social networks.

Pezão is not in a good phase in his MMA career. After leaving the UFC, already with a streak of three defeats (to Mark Hunt, Stefan struve e Roy Nelson), the Brazilian lost two more outside of Ultimate, being defeated by Ivan Shtyrkov and Vitaly Minakov, in two fights held in Russia. In kickboxing, Verhoeven has won seven consecutive victories, four of them by knockout. The Dutchman has one fight in MMA – also a knockout victory over Viktor Bogutzki in 2015.

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