"Looks so fkn painful" - Rico Verhoeven has popular bodybuilder on his knees with powerful punch, fans feel sorry for the muscleman

Widely recognised as the world’s best heavyweight kickboxer, GLORY champion Rico Verhoeven is renowned for his heavy strikes. The Dutchman holds a record of 60 wins and ten losses with 20 of those victories coming via knockout.

Verhoeven has not stepped into the ring since his October 2022 victory over Hesdy Gerges, who he stopped in the fifth round via TKO.

However, despite spending a lengthy period on the shelf rehabbing a knee injury, based on a recent Instagram post, Rico Verhoeven can still clearly hit like a truck.

The Dutchman posted a comical video on the social media site which showed him apparently helping bodybuilder Nicolas Lee train his core muscles.

The video, subtitled “Instagram VS. Reality”, shows Verhoeven supposedly punching Lee in the stomach while he performs hanging leg raises.

However, after landing two clearly pulled punches, Verhoeven then states “f*ck Instagram” before hitting Lee with a full power shot, causing the bodybuilder to drop to the ground in agony.

Unsurprisingly, a number of fans were quick to comment on the video, most of them waxing lyrical over Verhoeven’s striking power.

User @gvannitiney stated the following:

“He Rick, take it easy bro, you almost broke his ribs”

@sphiwe_pique_images said:

“That was straight to the diaphragm, a definite killer shot.”

@mmasutov stated:

“Looks so fkn painful.”

Nicolas Lee himself also commented, stating:

“The last shot f*cked me for real.”

View a collage of Instagram comments below.

Instagram followers comment on Rico Verhoeven's punch

Based on this video, it’s probably fair to say that whoever fights Verhoeven next could well be in trouble.

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Rico Verhoeven Tom Aspinall: What did the UFC heavyweight say after training with the kickboxing legend?

Rico Verhoeven is widely recognised as the world’s top heavyweight kickboxer. The reigning GLORY heavyweight champion has not fought since October 2022, but is expected to face top contender Antonio Plazibat in the near future.

However, back in the early part of 2022, highly rated UFC heavyweight contender Tom Aspinall travelled to the Netherlands to train with the Dutch kickboxer in preparation for his bout with Alexander Volkov.

It’s fair to say that Aspinall was clearly impressed. He labelled his training sessions with Verhoeven and fellow GLORY kickboxing star Benjamin Adegbuyi as “tremendous”, and claimed he “learned so much in a short space of time”.

Listen to Tom Aspinall discuss training with Rico Verhoeven below.

Aspinall is not the only notable MMA fighter to train with Verhoeven, as former UFC champ Francis Ngannou was also shown sparring with the Dutchman while building towards his 2022 clash with Ciryl Gane.