Rico Verhoeven is one of the greatest kickboxers to ever step in the ring, but he recently showed off his grappling skills during a training session with UFC heavyweight world champion Tom Aspinall. The two elite athletes have actually been sparring partners for quite a while now, and there really are no better men in the world for Aspinall to work on his striking with than Verhoeven. He has over two decades of professional kickboxing experience and has beaten virtually all of the best kickboxers during that time, most notably during his incredible 10-year undefeated run as the Glory heavyweight champion that’s still ongoing.
Although Verhoeven is best-known for his kickboxing career, he has tried his hand at other combat sports over the years as well. The single boxing match he had back in 2014 isn’t unusual for elite strikers in other disciplines, but he has actually had an MMA fight as well. This was around the period of his career in 2015, and it was the only time he ever competed under a ruleset with grappling involved. Verhoeven won that fight by knockout in the first round and his opponent only lasted just over two minutes with him, so he didn’t get to show off much of his skills on the ground.
Regardless, Verhoeven obviously would have had to work on his grappling in anticipation of his debut and he’s probably still tested the waters with Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling since then. He clearly has some knowledge of grappling too, as he shot in for a quick takedown against Aspinall during a striking session that appeared to catch him by surprise. The two men were also seen practicing their grappling with MMA gloves on too, and Verhoeven showed off a solid understanding of how to apply a rear-naked choke. Given that he’s 36 years old it’s likely that this is just for fun, but Verhoeven’s return to MMA would be one of the biggest pieces of combat sports news this year.
Rico Verhoeven shared the footage of him training his grappling with Tom Aspinall in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
