Bo Nickal’s trajectory in mixed martial arts has been nothing short of incredible. Having only started training MMA in the middle of 2021, Nickal now finds himself undefeated as a professional, signed to the UFC and has a slot on what will likely be one of the biggest cards of 2024, UFC 300.
On a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Nickal detailed his rapid rise through the ranks and how his initial plan altered throughout the process. He said:
“It has been so interesting, my journey. I always try to look for people to compare and see how they did things and maybe take the positives and the negatives and apply those to what I am doing. And there really hasn’t been that many people who’ve done what I’ve done. I am 5-0 right now. I started training in August of 2021, MMA.
“So I started training, four weeks later I was like ‘Let’s get a fight.’ So I took an amateur fight and just some poor dude, didn’t know what he was doing, 1-0 amateur, I was 0-0 and he took the fight.
“There were a lot of question marks, people were like ‘Let’s see what’s up.’ I choke the guy out and I was like ‘Let’s go again.’ Four weeks later, I fought my second amateur fight, knocked the dude out cold.”
At only 2-0 as an amateur, Nickal was already making a name for himself in the world of MMA, proving that his transition from wrestling was the right move. He felt the next step was to join the professional ranks and test his skillset on the regional scene.
“I had trained another 6-7 months and I was like let's do it. Pro debut. That was in June 2022. I am coming out against another poor guy who thought that he was going to knock me out or something. Knocked him out in 30 seconds on UFC Fight Pass and it did the most views in UFC Fight Pass history, more than any other promotion, it was something like three or four million views in a week."
After the viral knockout, Nickal admitted he was inundated with promotions trying to get him to sign with them. This resulted in him completely changing the path he had initially envisioned for his career and that if anything, the viral knockout would lead to him struggling to get matched on the domestic scene.
“The next morning, UFC, Bellator, ONE FC, PFL calling ‘Let’s do it, let’s do it.’ I am a 1-0 pro, I have been training 8 months.
“My initial plan before any of this happened was to get 10 fights on the regional scene, then I will go to the UFC and I will be the champ by 13-14 fights, that's what the plan was. Then after that (the knockout) everyone kind of knows what’s up, everyone is trying to sign me, I talk with my manager and I was like, ‘Am I even going to be able to get a fight? Who's going to fight me?’
“He was like, I will be honest with you, nobody is going to fight you.”
As appealing as several options would have been to many upcoming athlete, Nickal already had his mind made up as to which promotion he would fight for.
“My mind (was) always, I am going to the UFC. These other organisations I think they do a good job and stuff but that's not me, I am a UFC guy. So we discuss with the UFC and they are like ‘Hey we can throw you on Contenders (Series)’ and I am like, let’s do it and it was a couple of months later.
“My first fight, choke the guy out in a minute, Dana is like let’s do another fight, I am like ‘Perfect, let’s do it. That’s great.’ So then I fight on the last week of Contender Series.”
And from there, Nickal signed with the UFC and has continued to develop his skillset at an extremely quick pace. Still yet to make it out of the first round, the three time NCAA wrestling champion will face Cody Brundage at UFC 300.
