Bo Nickal is walking back on his previous comments about never fighting on the UFC prelims.
Nickal has gone a perfect 3-0 to start his mixed martial arts journey with all three wins coming by first round finishes. ‘The Allen Assassin’ most recently competed at last month’s Dana White Contender Series 56 event, submitting Donovan Beard with a triangle choke in just 52 seconds (see that here).
The wrestling phenom is now slated to make his official UFC debut at December’s pay-per-view event, UFC 282, where he will meet Jamie Pickett. While speaking on a recent episode of The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, Bo Nickal scoffed at the idea of competing on the UFC prelims, despite being a newcomer to the organization.
“Do I look like, am I a prelim guy? I’m not a prelim guy. If I have to fight on the prelims, I’ll just retire, I’m done,” Nickal said. “I don’t know if it’s in the contract, but they’ll (the UFC) do the right thing, they’ll do the smart thing and if I’m not, like I said, if I’m on the prelims, I’ll retire. I’m out… I’ve seen them do it before, put a bigger fight on the prelim, but I just, I don’t know. I’m a main card guy, it just doesn’t make sense. It’s Dana White’s Contender Series again, but I’m main eventing Dana White’s Contender Series at 2-0. Every fight I’m in is the main event. So, they’re putting me on the main card.”
Now, just twenty-four hours removed from that interview, Bo Nickal appears to have had a change of hard. The Penn State product took to Twitter this evening and suggested that fighting on the UFC prelims to start his career would be “the right thing” to do.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot… If the UFC puts a card together with 10 people who are all bigger draws than me, which is doable as there are many bigger draws than me currently, I’ll fight on prelims. Pains me to say it but it’d be the right thing. What do y’all think?
— Bo Nickal (@NoBickal) October 5, 2022
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot… If the UFC puts a card together with 10 people who are all bigger draws than me, which is doable as there are many bigger draws than me currently, I’ll fight on prelims. Pains me to say it but it’d be the right thing. What do y’all think?” – Nickal wrote.
Bo Nickal has needed only two minutes and twenty-seven seconds of cage time to defeat his first three opponents in mixed martial arts. Do you think the wrestling phenom will score another first round finish at UFC 282?