Rico Verhoeven

Honestly, Rico Verhoeven might be the most dominant heavyweight kickboxer the sport has ever seen, and I don't think that's even a controversial take. The guy stood at 196 cm and just bulldozed through the GLORY Heavyweight division for over a decade, defending that title thirteen times — thirteen — which is the kind of number that makes you wonder if the competition was even real. What I love is that he didn't get there on raw size alone; he trained in karate, Muay Thai, and K-1, so his technical base is genuinely deep. Born in Bergen op Zoom in 1989, he turned pro at just fifteen, which tells you everything about how early the hunger was there. The 2019 honorary citizenship from North Brabant feels well-earned — the province basically adopted a legend.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Rico Verhoeven

Name (Japanese)

リコ・ヴァーホーベン

Reading

りこ・ゔぁーほーべん

Born

April 10, 1989 (age 37)

Origin

Bergen op Zoom, North Brabant, Netherlands

Height

196 cm

Occupation

kickboxer / boxer / karateka / Thai boxer

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aries / Snake

Awards & achievements

• 2019 honorary citizen of North-Brabant

• Official sitehttps://www.ricoverhoeven.com/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/ricoverhoeven/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rico%20Verhoeven
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A1%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9B%E3%83%BC%E3%83%99%E3%83%B3
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7332289

Tags

• North Brabant
• kickboxer
• boxer
• karateka

Last updated

September 18, 2026

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.