THE NON-CONFORMIST OF COMBAT
a day. Between fights, they may puff up in weight. What is the training schedule like for a championship fight in kickboxing? RV: I took a lot of time off once and didn’t enjoy it. During preparation, about halfway through, I felt really bad. I felt like my body was run over, everything hurt, and it messes you up mentally. When I took a lot of time off, I had about two of those dips and messed myself up. The Ring: Did it affect your performance in the fight that was upcoming? RV: No, not really. It was just messing me up in the whole prep, so I’m like, “No, I’m never gonna do this again.” I’m worrying about stuff that I don’t need to worry about, like losing weight. If I’m constantly training and I’m a 6 or a 7 [out of 10], go up to 8 and get the dip, then we can charge right back up again. If you’re a 4, phew, it’s hard to get up to a 10. The Ring: With you fighting in so many different disciplines, was Bruce Lee ever an influence? RV: I watched a lot of Bruce Lee when I was younger. I liked him as a martial artist, as a philosopher and how he looked at life. He used the martial arts as a metaphor for life. There was the thing he said about water and rocks. The rock doesn’t move, but the water moves, flows and goes around it. You can’t charge at the rock or go over it … No, you just flow with it and find your way around it. That’s not only an interesting way of looking at life, but martial arts as well. The Ring: Who is the greatest UFC fighter of all time? Do you go with Jon Jones? RV: Yeah, I think so. Jon Jones has talent and skill at a different level. How he’s transitioned through different weight classes, coming up, I think it’s been really amazing. He’s so well-rounded as well. He’s not just good on the ground, but as a kickboxer, his stand-up is really good. I love that. The Ring: What is your favorite martial
arts movie and why? RV: My favorite martial arts movie? (long pause) Hmmm, if we go back in the day, I loved Mortal Kombat (1995). If we’re looking for realism, then we go to Warrior (2011) with Tom Hardy. If we go really far back, you go to Kickboxer (1989) or Enter the Dragon (1973), but those are … (motions that these movies are really old). If you ask me, everything that came after the 2000s is better. The 2000s are better than the 1990s and so on: The fighters, the athletes, the way of training, dieting. The Ring: I get where you’re coming from. In the majority of sports, say elite tennis players over the past 10 years, they’re the best that have ever lived, so why would boxing and fighting be different? RV: Exactly! The Ring: How was the idea to enter elite- level boxing hatched? RV: Back in the day, when we started training in Peter Fury’s camp. That would have been in 2011 or something like that. The Ring: Can you put into words Peter Fury’s contribution to your development as a boxer? RV: He’s a mentor on different levels. He’s very warm, but he knows when to say, “Hey, I’m the trainer, just listen!” He takes his job very seriously, but he’s such a warm and kind human being. That combination is amazing. To me, he’s the best boxing trainer there is. He approaches the game differently from other people … and it works. The Ring: You said your father started you out in boxing as a teenager. Were you able to hold your own very early in boxing sparring with real professionals? How were the early days? RV: (Laughing and shaking head) No, it’s a totally different sport. An outsider might think boxing, kickboxing and MMA are all the same; they’re all fighting, but believe me, they’re three totally different verticals. It’s different stances, different
movements, different techniques. It’s been crazy; it’s been one helluva transition. Throughout all those years with Peter Fury, he’d been teaching me boxing for kickboxing. It wasn’t like what he did for the last six months, when he’s been teaching me boxing to box. Before that, Peter might say, “Rico, try and do this!” I’d point out that this [technique] is hard within kickboxing. If I’m too much to the side, I might get kicked to the leg. He’d say, “OK, try to do it a bit more, but keep your balance.” Over the last six months, it was all, “You must do this! You must do that! This is boxing! Now you’re in my world!” I’m like, “Yes, sir!” The Ring: It’s difficult to master range in boxing: long, mid and close range. Did your ability to transition quickly from punching to kicking and kicking to punching make that easier for you? RV: A hundred percent, that’s what boxing gave me. Boxing gave me calculation of where to stand, to hit and move. What made me a better kickboxer is all the boxing I was doing. That’s what played a major role in making me the kickboxer I became. People in kickboxing would say I was a great kickboxer because my stamina was amazing. That is definitely not what it was. I was a good kickboxer because Peter gave me insight into boxing. He gave me the distance. He gave me the movement. He gave me the feints and things like that. The Ring: And the same applies to your positioning, right? You were creating angles all the time in kickboxing. RV: It was boxing that gave me all of that. Peter always says, “Fighting is a thinking man’s game!” If everyone was just throwing punches and kicks, it would be easy, but it’s not, because everybody can do that. You need to think about how you approach the fighting game. Peter and [head coach] Dennis Krauweel have had such a big influence on my development as
The unsatisfactory ending has sparked demand for a money-spinning rematch.
children is discipline. Do [in life] what you like to do, not what I tell you to do. But when you start, you finish. There’s no starting and then stopping in the middle. You start, you finish, and then you move on to something else. That’s one of the most important things I try to give them. I try to give them responsibility. They know that certain choices have certain consequences. I don’t [train my] own children [in martial arts], because it wasn’t always nice to have that situation. But I think it could work, provided there’s the right balance where the father and son or daughter relationship isn’t jeopardized. What you’re constantly doing is playing a role. If you do not switch between those roles, and get stuck in one, then you’ll be in a very difficult place. The Ring: What martial arts have you studied? RV: My father started teaching me
view on it. I try to be a better version of me in everything I do. That’s as a human being, an athlete, a father … You name it, I try to improve, try to listen, try to learn, and I think that’s the most important thing. The Ring: It’s a winner’s mentality, right? RV: It’s a winner’s mentality, but that’s really general. What does that mean, to have a winner’s mentality? You can say, “Oh, I always train hard!” Of course I always train hard, but I think it’s important to criticize yourself. If you did something right, tell yourself, “Hey, that was a good move right there!” But what did I do wrong, and why did I do it? Start analyzing it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s one of the biggest keys to my success. The Ring: A boxer will do a full training camp for several weeks, training six days a week, two or three times
kickboxing, but he came from Kyokushin karate (full contact, stand- up karate). He was teaching me kickboxing, but with the Kyokushin influences. It was the [Kyokushin] way of kicking, not traditional kickboxing. Later, we started boxing at the age of 17 or 18. After that, I started doing some wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, some grappling and some MMA. So, yeah, I’ve been around the block. The Ring: Your success at GLORY has been legendary. Why was it you who went undefeated in kickboxing for over a decade? If there was one thing that separated you from the pack, what was it? RV: It’s hard, but I’ll give you my own
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