‘It was never my ambition to be the best MMA fighter,’ says kickboxing champion

But it's not just kickboxing where Verhoeven enjoyed success. The Dutch fighter has also fought in MMA whilst learning from the best in the form of former two-weight UFC champion Daniel Cormier.

While Verhoeven clearly had some talent to be force in MMA, he revealed during an exclusive interview with DAZN News that this particular discipline was one where he had little interest. 

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"I definitely thought about getting into MMA, but for me, it's always looking... I had the ups and the downs and the reason to believe, so why should I transition to a different sport?" Verhoeven said. 

"And I truly believe that if you want to transition into something, your ambition should be to be the very best.

"I never had the ambition to be the very best MMA fighter. Like I said, if that's not the case, if that's not the ambition, why should I transition? It doesn't make any sense."

Next up for Verhoeven is a title defence at Glory 100 against Artem Vakhitov (22-6, 8 KOs) and despite being 36-years-old, retirement has not even crossed the mind of Glory's heavyweight champion.. 

"I don't really have a number in my head like, 'Oh, I'm going to fight for another five years or three years or two years.' It's just like I really try to stay close to connecting with my team, and they help me with the reflection of myself, looking at how we're feeling, how we're doing," Verhoeven continued.

"And as long as that is straightforward and everybody's like, 'Hey, I think we still got it,' we still got it, and we're going to continue.

"But as soon as the moment comes that there's a gap or a possibility that we feel like, "I'm not sure if we still got it," maybe that's the moment we should throw in the towel."

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