Bo Nickal has a lot to learn but losing to Reinier de Ridder doesn’t mean he was some overhyped prospect that didn’t deserve the attention he was getting.
That’s according to UFC legend Matt Brown, who was irate hearing the commentary about Nickal following his loss this past Saturday night at UFC Des Moines when he got dropped and finished with a vicious body shot that put him away in the second round. Following a blistering start to his career with a perfect 7-0 record, Nickal tasted defeat for the first time and struggled throughout the fight against a much more experienced opponent in de Ridder.
“It really frustrated me and almost upset me hearing all these people say ‘fraud check,’” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I’m sure you’ve seen this. I’m like, get the f*ck out of here.
“Give credit where credit is due: de Ridder looked f*cking awesome. He looked great. He looked like a two-weight world champion coming from ONE should look like. He looked like a guy that has a bright future and has a lot of big things to do. Bo Nickal looked like a guy fighting a two-weight world champion he was just not ready for yet. That’s the downside of a guy like Bo Nickal coming into the UFC with very little experience and being tossed to the wolves. He’s had some somewhat favorable matchups before, not totally favorable, but matchups that were very winnable. De Ridder, we finally found out where Bo Nickal needs to improve. He’s not a fraud at all. The motherf*cker’s going to be a top five guy in the future, I can almost guarantee it.”
Brown believes taking aim at Nickal for a poor performance negates all the things that de Ridder did to beat him in the fight.
While he’s best known for his world-class grappling skills, de Ridder has worked tirelessly on constantly improving his striking and he showed off those weapons by constantly battering Nickal to the body throughout the fight. The hard work really paid off when de Ridder put Nickal away with that knee to the midsection in the second round that ended the three-time NCAA National Champion wrestler’s undefeated run in MMA.
“Reinier de Ridder is a great f*cking fighter,” Brown said. “He’s had the experience advantage. He knows how to fight. Bo Nickal is learning how to fight. Bo Nickal knows how to wrestle like a motherf*cker. If this was a wrestling match, Bo NIckal tech falls him or pins him within a period most likely. But de Ridder is well-rounded, and I think that’s what showed the most was you saw the transitions from one thing to another, one art to another, and you saw a guy that knew how to handle every position.
“Whereas Bo Nickal, if you want to say exposed or anything, it exposed that he is still a rookie. He is still a beginner in this sport. He still has a ways to go.”
Now an argument could be made that Nickal brought some of this on himself after making bold claims about the future before he really proved himself in the present.
Almost immediately after the fight was over quotes from past interviews where Nickal talked about beating Khamzat Chimaev and claiming that de Ridder wanted to grapple with him only to avoid a potential knockout on the feet really came back to bite him.
But Brown understands Nickal wasn’t doing anything different than playing into the expectations that were already heaped on his shoulders after he chose to compete in MMA following the end of his wrestling career. Add to that, Brown says the loss to de Ridder at this stage of Nickal’s career might actually benefit him more than adding a few more wins on his record.
“Bo Nickal, stop with the fraud check bullshit,” Brown said. “Stop with he was exposed or overrated or overhyped, the hype train ended, all this bullshit. Bo Nickal, if he wants to, he will be back and he will be top five.
“That really frustrated me when people say that shit, and I think that a lot of people do it for headlines, just to get people reading their things, for people to respond or whatever. But the fact is, Bo Nickal’s hype is truthful, and I believe it’s going to come to fruition if he sticks at it. I think this might be the best thing to happen to him, to be honest … maybe he fell into the hype train himself. Maybe he wasn’t pushing himself. Maybe he wasn’t putting himself in bad positions as much as he could have. This might be the best thing to happen to him.”
Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio
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