Rico Verhoeven is willing to face Francis Ngannou after he takes on Oleksandr Usyk.The Dutch kickboxing icon shocked the world after he announced he would face unified heavyweight champion Usyk in just his second ever boxing fight.Verhoeven is open to a new offer from Ngannou after he faces UsykGettyIt promises to be a blockbuster event in Egypt, and will come with the opportunity to capture the Ukrainian’s WBC title.Verhoeven was subject to interest from a range of leading promoters prior to facing Usyk.He was originally touted to meet Anthony Joshua in the boxing ring, but also received a contract offer from the UFC.But in a huge bout, Verhoeven was offered the chance to face heavyweight Francis Ngannou by Jake Paul‘s Most Valuable Promotions.The showdown had looked set to take place on the Ronda Rousey vs Gina Carano undercard, but Verhoeven rejected the offer.In an exclusive chat with talkSPORT.com, he has revealed that he turned it down to prioritise Usyk, but is open to exploring it again.He said: “Yes the reason I rejected this offer is because of the Usyk fight.“100 per cent, I would like to revisit that [a fight with Ngannou] in the future. That would be a great event.“But for me the Usyk fight just made more sense. There is a lot of reasons.“The legacy purpose is the main reason though. I’ll be looking back on this when I’m old and grey.Verhoeven felt the Usyk fight offered more valueGetty“I’ll be looking back having fought the very best boxer in the world. It will be crazy.”Verhoeven has fought in professional MMA in the past in 2015.And he will carry some fundamentals across having had such success in the kickboxing ranks.Ngannou – disappointed Verhoeven rejected fightFor Ngannou, he will still compete on Paul’s groundbreaking event which will be the first MMA card on Netflix.He will take on Philipe Lins, the 40-year-old Brazilian who last competed in the UFC in 2024.It will be a match-up that Ngannou is expected to taste victory and try to move on to bigger things.Ngannou will now instead face LinsAFPAnd ‘The Predator’ admitted he wasn’t as inspired by the fight booking as he would have been if it was Verhoeven.He said: “No disrespect to Philipe, but I was very excited about the Rico fight.“And then when I heard that he signed to fight Usyk, I was a little disappointed, to be honest. “I know that since maybe December or even before, he had a verbal agreement to fight in boxing, to fight potentially Usyk or AJ, somebody. “So I knew that even when Nakisa approached me, he said, ‘This is the thing, Rico really likes this, but this is the position.’ And he was always quite clear about it.”