Rico Verhoeven’s coach Peter Fury says the referee in Oleksandr Usyk vs. Rico Verhoeven told him he did not hear the bell before stopping the fight. That gives Verhoeven’s appeal after the Glory In Giza stoppage a very specific point to chase.
Usyk was awarded an 11th-round TKO at the Giza Plateau after Verhoeven was hurt late in the round. The argument is not just whether Verhoeven was in trouble. It is whether the stoppage came after the bell, and Fury says he asked the referee about that directly on the flight home.
Watch Fury’s full IFL TV interview below:
Fury said the official was on the same flight back, so he went to him rather than guessing from a distance.
“I know his first name’s Mark, the referee was on the flight with me on the way back,” Fury said. “So I spoke to him, I went over, and the best way to sort any dispute is go and ask the question, isn’t it, to the person who’s done it. I said, ‘You’ve made a mistake.’ And he said to me, which was very important. He said, ‘Peter, I didn’t hear the bell.’”
Peter Fury Calls It A Genuine Mistake, Not A Fix
Fury did not accuse the referee of corruption. He said he believed the explanation because he also could not clearly hear the bell during the live chaos.
“I said, ‘Well, no, that I believe because I didn’t hear the bell either. I thought it was like two seconds before because I’m only going off what people’s telling me around the ring,’” Fury said.
That is the key difference between a bad stoppage argument and a cleaner appeal argument. Fury’s point is not that Usyk did anything wrong. It is that the third man may have missed the sound that should have ended the round.
“So yes, it’s a mistake he’s made,” Fury said. “I’m going to call it a genuine mistake. That’s all I can do because I can’t accuse a fella of anything else. That’s ridiculous. There’s no facts there. And after me speaking with him, he said it, and he said it honestly. He said, ‘I never hear the bell.’ So I take that as right because I didn’t hear the bell either.”
Verhoeven was not some novelty act getting thrown into a boxing ring for a payday. He is GLORY’s longest-reigning heavyweight champion, defended that title a record 13 times, and is listed with a 66-10 kickboxing record. Usyk is 25-0 as a pro boxer, a 2012 Olympic gold medalist, and a former undisputed champion at cruiserweight and heavyweight.
That is why Usyk surviving Verhoeven at Glory In Giza has turned into more than a simple result. The official record says Usyk won by TKO. Verhoeven’s side is now pointing at the bell, the timing, and the referee’s alleged explanation.
The shorter clip that spread online is below:
Rico Verhoeven’s coach, Peter Fury, says that the referee admitted that he made a mistake in the Oleksandr Usyk fight and stopped the fight after the bell 🚨
“I said ‘you’ve made a mistake’ – he said, ‘Peter, I didn’t hear the bell.’”
🎥 @IFLTV pic.twitter.com/wGUZBUf50j
— ACD MMA (@acdmma_) May 25, 2026
Fury is Tyson Fury’s uncle and helped train him for the Wladimir Klitschko fight, so this is not a random corner voice yelling into the void. He still gave the fight credit, saying, “But look, I thought we seen an excellent fight.”
The fight delivered. The ending gave everyone a paperwork problem, and Verhoeven’s pre-fight promise to bring Usyk something different now has a messy appeal attached to it.
