SHARE
Badr Hari

It’s the kickboxing fight of the century and it might be closer than many expect. Badr Hari’s head coach clarifies that Rico Verhoeven versus the Moroccan-Dutch Heavyweight could be just ‘four or five months’ away.

Appearing on Ziggo TV’s highly regarded talkshow, PepTalk, Hari’s head coach Mike Passenier reported that they are set to talk with GLORY next week in order to try and finalise a deal for the fight.

Passenier clarified that although Hari is ready for a super-showdown with GLORY Heavyweight champion Verhoeven, he would need ‘four or five months’ in order to get the 31 year-old fully prepared.

“[The fight] It is very realistic. We have spoken with the lawyers today. Next week we will sit down with the lawyers of GLORY. Then we will know if it will be arranged. But we never said that we didn’t want to fight,” spoke Passenier.

He added: “We always want to fight, that’s not a problem, but Badr needs four or five months in order to prepare. Besides, the fight still needs to be promoted, that also takes time.”

As for the calmly collected GLORY world champion, Verhoeven feels he could fight Hari ‘next week’. The 27 year-old also corroborated Passenier’s report, claiming that GLORY are actively pursuing the fight: “We received several offers but none of them are serious for us. But now Glory came with a serious offer.”

Although there are apparently on-going talks between the fighters and GLORY Kickboxing, there is no indication as to how advanced these negotiations are.

The quotes are taken from the Telegraaf.Nl’s write up of the talkshow segment, and were translated into English using Google Translate and the help of Dutch translators Matazurka and Michael Duarte.

You can watch the full interview (in Dutch) on the Fightstadium Facebook page.