Bo Nickal has long been praised as one of the best prospects to ever sign with the UFC after he was a three-time NCAA champion wrestler at Penn State, but he faced his first real adversity this past May when he suffered a brutal body shot knockout loss to Reinier de Ridder.
The fight served as Nickalâs first defeat, but like so many highly touted athletes from the past, he immediately faced criticism that perhaps he wasnât as good as everybody expected. The reality was Nickal probably shouldnât have been facing a former two-division ONE champion in his eighth professional fight and only his fifth appearance in the UFC.
His longtime head coach Mike Brown from American Top Team acknowledged the fight against de Ridder was too much, too soon but that was just the nature of beast given Nickalâs status with the UFC.
âHe was moving a bit too fast,â Brown told MMA Fighting. âWe all knew it. He knew it. I knew it. We all knew it. Management knew it. But he was also was getting paid very well. Youâre not going to get the big bucks if youâre fighting guys on the prelims. If youâre getting bigger paychecks, then theyâre going to push you and not give you layups.
âExperience is so much in this sport. Experience is everything. He went a little too quick, a little too fast but also it was a little bit of pressure off surprisingly when de Ridder after he beat Bo, he beat âBobby Knucklesâ [Robert] Whittaker.â
The win over Nickal catapulted de Ridder up the middleweight ranks and his next victory over former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker put the Dutch fighter arguably one win away from a title shot. Sadly for him, de Ridder fell to Brendan Allen in his final fight in 2025, but he remains one of the top 185-pounders on the UFC roster.
As disappointing as it was to see Nickal suffer the loss, Brown knows he learned a lot from that fight and it only made him that much better afterwards.
âItâs not a fight I necessarily wanted 100 percent,â Brown said. âThere are other guys I would have rather had. [Reinier de Ridder] just showed that heâs better than a lot of people in that division. Heâs capable of big things. Heâs got more experience than Bo and it showed.
âThatâs the fight game. In this game, everybody loses or 99.9 percent of every great UFC fighter loses.â
Following a six-month hiatus between fights, Nickal returned at UFC 322 and put on a much better performance as he dominated multi-time grappling champion Rodolfo Vieira before scoring a devastating head kick knockout in the third round.
The win put Nickal back on track and also yielded him a $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus.
More importantly, Nickal added more cage time to his resume, and Brown believes that fight showed the constant improvements being made to eventually put him in a position to battle for a UFC title one day.
âIt was a nice comeback,â Brown said. âHe dominated. He looked great. He had a nice highlight reel KO, which was beautiful.â
Nickal hasnât booked his next fight yet but he is set to face Yoel Romero at RAF 5 on Saturday in a very intriguing matchup between two very accomplished wrestlers.
Once he returns to the UFC, Nickal is obviously going to try to start building a new win streak, but his coach recognizes that he still has a long way to go until heâs a tearing through the rankings and potentially challenging for a title.
That said, Brown has no doubt Nickal is going to get there eventually.
âAgreed, 100 percent, [heâs going to become a champion],â Brown said. âHeâs a special athlete.â
He was calling out world champions after two or three fights.
Now itâs conveniently âthey rushed me too fastâ.
Came into the sport with zero humility and got exposed pretty quickly.
Bo probably still thinks heâs the best in the world.
Luke and Colby both shit all over him at the RAF press conference.
Clip of this?
This. Ginger douche got what he deserved.
Khamzat wasnât claiming he was being rushed, just saying.
Couldnt find a short clip sorry brotha
That last RDR fight is a weird one. He looked so damn good against Bo and proved it with a W over Bobby Knuckles, but something seemed off with him against Allen. There was talk of injury or weight cut problems, but not sure how much came out.
I donât consider Bo losing to RDR to be a bad loss at all in the long run. Time will tell.
Rdr had to cheat to beat Rob. He held the inside of his gloves to avoid a tko loss and to hold Rob against the fence. He tried the same with Allen. RDR gassed because he had 5 massive weight cuts in less than a year and a half.
As far as Bo, the guy should have been rushed to the top. He is an elite level wrestler and expecting the UFC to keep feeding him bums is loser shit.
A lot of people could grab the inside of Robâs gloves while getting beaten mercilessly. RDR is legit. He underperformed immensely against Allen.
It was a great fight to see where Bo was at versus top 5 guys. He just wasnât there yet.
BONOSE
Meh
Eees Normal
Yeah he was definitely rushed. His best win was Paul Craig lol. UFCâs matchmaking is just BAD. Lol