Bo Nickal

[okokzach]

He claimed he's the best 86kg wrestler in the world currently. He said it a couple times during a YouTube video he released today in conversation with Chael Sonnen. That would imply he's regularly beating Aaron Brooks in the room and I find that a little hard to believe. Thoughts? 

[Le duke]

He claimed he's the best 86kg wrestler in the world currently. He said it a couple times during a YouTube video he released today in conversation with Chael Sonnen. That would imply he's regularly beating Aaron Brooks in the room and I find that a little hard to believe. Thoughts? 

Brooks isn’t going to be an 86kg wrestler ever again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[okokzach]

28 minutes ago, Le duke said:

Brooks isn’t going to be an 86kg wrestler ever again.

And he was never the best 86er to begin with, but those things are kinda beside the point. The question is what people think about Bo's claim of being the best 86kg wrestler in the world right now. I mention Brooks because he recently completed at 86 and is someone Bo has been rolling with for a long time. To be the best 86er, Bo would need to at least be better than Brooks (and then some)

[BruceyB]

49 minutes ago, okokzach said:

He claimed he's the best 86kg wrestler in the world currently. He said it a couple times during a YouTube video he released today in conversation with Chael Sonnen. That would imply he's regularly beating Aaron Brooks in the room and I find that a little hard to believe. Thoughts? 

It's easy to make claims that can't be disproven. I don't foresee him disrupting his MMA career to come out and put his money where his mouth is. He's just talking to make headlines. He's in the promotion business now. I'm curious what others think, but I believe he would be the underdog against Zahid right now. Zahid was a singlet pull away from beating Brooks, and has only improved over the past handful of years as well as grown into the weight. Nickal hasn't focused on freestyle wrestling in multiple years. I'd love to see it though.

[Hammerlock3]

That kid needs attention....

[okokzach]

1 hour ago, BruceyB said:

It's easy to make claims that can't be disproven. I don't foresee him disrupting his MMA career to come out and put his money where his mouth is. He's just talking to make headlines. He's in the promotion business now. I'm curious what others think, but I believe he would be the underdog against Zahid right now. Zahid was a singlet pull away from beating Brooks, and has only improved over the past handful of years as well as grown into the weight. Nickal hasn't focused on freestyle wrestling in multiple years. I'd love to see it though.

Agreed. He's been boring in his fights against higher quality (but still mediocre) competition. I'd rather watch him wrestle 

[Truzzcat]

If he feels strongly that he is then he should wrestle at the trials and make the team this year.

[mspart]

That would be something eh?

mspart

[BruceyB]

6 hours ago, Truzzcat said:

If he feels strongly that he is then he should wrestle at the trials and make the team this year.

But then his claim would be proven false..

[pokemonster]

17 hours ago, BruceyB said:

It's easy to make claims that can't be disproven. I don't foresee him disrupting his MMA career to come out and put his money where his mouth is. He's just talking to make headlines. He's in the promotion business now. I'm curious what others think, but I believe he would be the underdog against Zahid right now. Zahid was a singlet pull away from beating Brooks, and has only improved over the past handful of years as well as grown into the weight. Nickal hasn't focused on freestyle wrestling in multiple years. I'd love to see it though.

What's the record between Zahid and Bo? I found 2 matches, Zahid won 8-2 in 2016 and Bo won 11-5 about 4 years ago (Bo was up 5-7, countered Zahid with a 4 with about 10 secs to go on a last TD attempt). That's when the infamous butt slap happened. Curious if they met any other times, I can only imagine Zahid is better than the last go. 

[BruceyB]

7 minutes ago, pokemonster said:

What's the record between Zahid and Bo? I found 2 matches, Zahid won 8-2 in 2016 and Bo won 11-5 about 4 years ago (Bo was up 5-7, countered Zahid with a 4 with about 10 secs to go on a last TD attempt). That's when the infamous butt slap happened. Curious if they met any other times, I can only imagine Zahid is better than the last go. 

I'm not going to take the time to look it up, but I think that was Bo's last year on the freestyle circuit and he eventually faced Taylor and lost to be the rep that year. I wouldn't be surprised if those were the only two meetings as Zahid was smaller than Bo for most of their careers.

[PortaJohn]

I wouldn't take too much stock in Bo's comments.  These interviews are geared towards MMA fans.  Can't tell you how many worthless debates I've been in with my MMA buddies during the Burroughs/Khabib era.  They legit thought Khabib could beat him on the mat.  Same crap and no different than the McGregror nut huggers who believed he could beat Mayweather in boxing

[666]

34 minutes ago, PortaJohn said:

I wouldn't take too much stock in Bo's comments.  These interviews are geared towards MMA fans.  Can't tell you how many worthless debates I've been in with my MMA buddies during the Burroughs/Khabib era.  They legit thought Khabib could beat him on the mat.  Same crap and no different than the McGregror nut huggers who believed he could beat Mayweather in boxing

Most of the MMA fans seem lost when it comes to wrestler's accolades. I guess Bo stated he was a much better wrestler than Jon Jones and a lot of the MMA guys were saying how stupid Bo was. I tried to explain to them the difference between JUCO and D1, and they just weren't getting it, they were saying nobody could beat Jon in grappling. 

[PortaJohn]

3 minutes ago, 666 said:

Most of the MMA fans seem lost when it comes to wrestler's accolades. I guess Bo stated he was a much better wrestler than Jon Jones and a lot of the MMA guys were saying how stupid Bo was. I tried to explain to them the difference between JUCO and D1, and they just weren't getting it, they were saying nobody could beat Jon in grappling. 

Ha!  Have had the same debate.  

[mspart]

Grappling is different than wrestling isn't it.   Jones may be better in grappling which has submission techniques. 

mspart

[Hammerlock3]

I think Nickal is best 86k guy on earth except for Aaron Pico.

[wrestlingshoe]

Most people who go into MMA are either not the best at their original sport or too old to be competitive in their original sport. What MMA fans don't get is the best striker in MMA can't beat the best boxer.  The best grappler in MMA can beat the best wrestler... so on and so forth. 

[mspart]

This is probably true.

But I think grappling is enogh different than wrestling for this to be debateable.   Grapplers don't care if they are on their back.   They use submission.   Wrestling does not and they do not teach counters to submissions.   So the basics are similar but the rest is different. 

mspart

[wrestlingshoe]

I agree.  I would venture to say too, that the best wrestler in MMA can not beat the best wrestler.  And Bo is just flexing his MMA muscles for sound bites as has already been stated. 

[AgaveMaria]

On 1/7/2025 at 1:19 PM, BruceyB said:

But then his claim would be proven false..

The Refs..., it is the fault of the refs.

Or - the lights were wrong. The mat was slick or too rough or not clean or the wrong color.

Make the claim - back it up on the mat or shut your pie hole.

[alex1fly]

On 1/6/2025 at 9:29 PM, Hammerlock3 said:

That kid needs attention....

Nailed it. Like a good hammer does!

 

Hasn't wrestled since April 2021. Has only fought 7 times in MMA since then. He's probably bored out of his mind.

[1032004]

Well he also claimed on that episode that his podcast was the “#1 podcast in combat sports”…

On that note, I’ve tried to watch his podcast a few times and he’s pretty boring.  This one even had the always entertaining Chael Sonnen on and I still couldn’t watch until the end 

 

[wrestle87]

You have to understand anything Bo says to promote himself he’s likely being asked, if not sideways told to say to promote one upcoming match or another.

The UFC is no longer what it was, it is professional wrestling, except the fights are (more?) real, and outcomes less scripted.  But the fanfare and trash talk, all contrived, completely fake.  That goes for anything a fighter says while under contract with the UFC.  You can’t trust a word out of a fighter’s mouth, bc it was put their in an attempt at marketing, but if the fighters say so, they get put in roster jail and their careers are killed.

Edit: Man, I love MMA, but the UFC truly does blow now.

Edited Saturday at 10:40 AM by wrestle87

[BruceyB]

39 minutes ago, wrestle87 said:

You have to understand anything Bo says to promote himself he’s likely being asked, if not sideways told to say to promote one upcoming match or another.

The UFC is no longer what it was, it is professional wrestling, except the fights are (more?) real, and outcomes less scripted.  But the fanfare and trash talk, all contrived, completely fake.  That goes for anything a fighter says while under contract with the UFC.  You can’t trust a word out of a fighter’s mouth, bc it was put their in an attempt at marketing, but if the fighters say so, they get put in roster jail and their careers are killed.

Edit: Man, I love MMA, but the UFC truly does blow now.

100%. That's why after almost every "bad blood" fight, you see guys hug it out and likely apologize for the public insults that were only directed to promote the fight. I would imagine that 99% of fighters respect the hell out of each other, and the trash talk is just necessary to promote the PPV money. I wouldn't want to see it, but I'm sure if NCAA wrestlers starting talking massive trash about one another prior to NCAA's and the promos were cut on TV, it would undoubtedly raise viewership by at least a small margin. Storylines are as important as anything when it comes to casual fans. 

[de4856]

Well I would love to see Bo Nickal get back into wrestling. I think that he would be great at either 86, or 92.