Based off of what he saw, Bo Nickal thinks he could impose his grappling on Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya.
Nickal has yet to prove himself in MMA, but his decorated wrestling background has him confident that he could take out anyone in the middleweight division.
A three-time NCAA Division-I national wrestling champion and three-time Big Ten champion at Penn State, Nickal has run through his competition so far. He’s 3-0 in his pro MMA career with three quick first-round finishes – and has yet to absorb a strike.
When watching the most recent title fight in his division, in which Pereira dethroned Adesanya with a fifth-round TKO to win the belt, Nickal (3-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) wasn’t too impressed with the grappling on display from both men.
“That’s a relatively, I would say – I’m not going to say ‘easy’ fight, because he’s dangerous,” Nickal said of Pereira on The MMA Hour. “But as far styles go, that’s a great matchup for me. I’ve watched their fight a couple times, and the grappling (is where I’d win). The striking exchanges are super impressive – that goes without saying. They’re absolutely elite strikers. But when they get ahold of each other, it’s just almost, like, funny.
“Like, I’m laughing at how they’re moving and what they’re doing and stuff. And maybe they feel that way about me when I’m hitting pads and hitting the bag and stuff. But I just feel like, if I grabbed ahold of either of those guys, it wouldn’t go well for them. And I think everybody knows that, so that’s not something that’s a shocking statement or that’s pretty outlandish, in my opinion.”
Nickal makes his promotional debut when he opens up the UFC 285 main card against Jamie Pickett (12-8 MMA, 2-4 UFC) on March 4 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
