Heartened by the belated credit his spirited performance deserved, the Dutchman has reaffirmed a desire to pursue boxing after giving The Ring's No. 2-rated pound-for-pound fighter a torrid time in their Egypt encounter.

The kickboxing icon described it as 'a day to never forget' when assessing a memorable experience with the Pyramids of Giza a fitting backdrop, headlining the "Glory in Giza" card in only his second professional appearance.

"I felt so good, was enjoying myself, definitely showing what I can do... I think we shocked the world like I set out to do, just the unfortunate end was premature," he told The Ring's Louis Hart.

"The first round goes and I just started flowing. Everything we worked on in the gym just like came off, I was like 'oh my God, this is working.' And then the rounds kept on going and I was like 'ok, this is nice.' And after four rounds we get the open scoring, I believe we were tied up, I was like 'hmmm, I'm not sure if that's my feeling but it's good, nobody expected that [he'd be doing so well], basically.'

While Verhoeven more than held his own in the early rounds, it was the fight's second-half where things got interesting as he pressed with urgency and wasn't overawed by the occasion. Instead, he grew more comfortable.

The 36-year-old held a 93-89 connect advantage in power punches landed per CompuBox, landing more power shots in seven of their 10 completed rounds, while connecting on 38% of his power shots. That figure represents the third-highest percentage of any Usyk opponent in the Ukrainian's distinguished career to date.

"Then getting past the fifth to eighth, I'm thinking 'ooh, now I'm really getting into the flow.' We're still tied up after eight rounds and hmm... I don't know, that feels strange because I really feel like I'm better, touching him more than he's touching me. Then reality sinks in, okay I really have to outperform myself and my opponent to be even better, make these points even clearer [to the judges].

"Work even harder because that's what my team already told me, if we wanna get that win, we really have to push it because they're not gonna give it to us."

When asked if there was anything catching him by surprise, the longtime GLORY heavyweight champion said his success against the future Hall of Famer made him do a double-take.

"The only thing that surprised me was, am I outjabbing the champ? This is feeling good, I was surprised about that, really flowing into this fight and my trainer told me before, he's not going to show you something you haven't seen before and he was correct.

"He's an amazing fighter, super accomplished but didn't show me something I didn't see before. I knew he was going to be smart, agile and fast."

The challenger gave insight into why he boxed so aggressively and with constant pressure against Usyk, pointing to the close nature of open scoring as why he opted against a more conservative approach in the later rounds.

"It's not really hard to watch it back, up until the last 30 seconds of the 11th round, I was fine. I made a mistake, walked into that uppercut, okay that's that. I had to push it, otherwise I was gonna lose on points anyway.

Laughing at the notion Usyk is 'over the hill' after making him look beatable, Verhoeven seeks a formal apology having appealed the decision Sunday. Some critics have said that between the scorecards and referee Mark Lyson's contentious stoppage, the crossover star wasn't given a fair shake. However, he denied that suggestion.

"It's not about that, they're looking at the fight through a protective boxing lens which makes it harder for an outsider to crack through," the Dutchman said, before doubling down on wanting a rematch and sharing Turki Alalshikh's post-fight conversation with him, hopeful they get a second opportunity in due course.