Bo Nickal came into MMA with a lot of hype. Nickal joined a serious team from the get go and seemed willing to play the MMA game despite diminishing financial returns.
Bo Nickal has a lot of buzz behind him. His professional debut on Friday just added to his popularity.
Nickal’s wrestling achievements at Penn State drew a lot of attention when he chose to become professional after excelling in two amateur contests. Nickal is also a three-time Big Ten Conference champion.
In the 92kg weight class, Nickal won both a national title and a U-23 global championship in 2019. He had a wrestling record consisting of 120 wins and 3 losses in college, with a combined 61-0 record in his junior and senior years.
Nickal took the traditional route and enlisted to Dana White’s Contender Series. DWCS is a UFC feeder organization which basically makes sure that UFC has plenty of athletes on the hook for 10k to win 10k to show contracts.
This kind of thing is exactly why Olympic Gold medalist Gable Stevenson went straight into WWE not even entertaining such tiny offers.
Still Nickal justified the oddsmakers 10 to 1 odds and recently a compilation of his entire career got posted online – entirety of time Nickal spent in the MMA cage is shorter than a single round.
This is literally the entire @NoBickal
's professional mixed martial arts career. pic.twitter.com/75nZLVRJI9— calfkicker (@calfkickercom) October 10, 2022
Bo Nickal has been enjoying his time in the spotlight. The decorated wrestler went on to disrespect UFC’s rising star Khamzat Chimaev by calling him a phoney and said that he “can’t even beat the scale” as part of his ongoing verbal conflict with him.
After his convincing victory over Donovan Beard on Dana White’s Contender Series last Tuesday, Bo Nickal criticized Chimaev for his unsportsmanlike conduct and previous theatrics at the weigh-in.
Chimaev reportedly entered his UFC 279 event against Nate Diaz 7.5 pounds overweight. That infuriated Nickal, who accused him of tarnishing the reputation of the sport.
According to a source, he remarked,
“I just think, first off, this dude talks about he’s ready to go always, he’s a gangster, this and that – bro, you can’t even beat the scale.”
“What are you doing? This is just a dude that has no accountability and doesn’t treat the sport professionally. That makes me way less nervous to fight him in the future, because we’re going to fight. I know he’s not committed like I am. He’s not willing to do the things that I’m willing to do.”
“Yeah, he’s talented. Yeah, he has skills. But if that’s how you approach the sport, if that’s how you treat it, we’re on different levels.”
“People will act like I’m talking crazy because I say I’m ready to go – Chimaev, let’s get it – but reality is this dude won three national titles in Sweden and then came into MMA…”
“I’ve been competing since I was 5 [years old]. I had 120-plus NCAA wrestling matches. I won a U23 world championship.”