Bo Nickal is taking the longest layoff of his short MMA career in stride, but he already knows when he’ll be getting back to work.
Nickal (5-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) is one of the top prospects in the game after entering the sport following a decorated collegiate wrestling career. He has already made waves with two UFC appearances that ended in a combined fight time of three minutes and 32 seconds, but his momentum has somewhat slowed.
The middleweight hasn’t competed since July, which for him, isn’t ideal. Given he’s only trained in MMA for less than three years, though, Nickal, 27, is trying to look at his career from a macro perspective, and he can’t discount the value of growth in the gym between fights.
“I always try to look at people and compare and see how they did things and compare the positives and negatives and apply those to what I’m doing,” Nickal said on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “And there isn’t really that many people who’ve done what I’ve done. I’m 5-0 right now. I started training in August of 2021 in MMA.
“I can only fight so many guys before I move into the top 15 and top 10. I’ve only been training in MMA a little over two years, so, is that really the best move for me? Do I want to be fighting a top 15 in the world on two years of experience, or do I want to take control while I can, slow it down, learn, develop and get better? I’m still a prospect, so these type of things that are things that are on my mind. People that are close, coaches, have just helped me with. Because I want to get there. I have goals and a plan, but there’s also a better way to go about it that I’m trying to be considerate of and manage.”
Nickal’s break from octagon won’t last too much longer, however. He told Rogan he originally wanted to fight at UFC 299 on March 9 in Miami, which is close to his training home of American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Fla. But then the option of competing at the historic UFC 300 on April 13 materialized, and Nickal couldn’t pass on the opportunity.
“No opponent yet, but I’m going to fight at UFC 300,” Nickal said. “I’m fired up. That’s going to be fun. My goal for this next fight is whoever they give me. I’m still on my first contract, so I kind of want to fight this out and then see as it goes. I have two left, so it was four. I would like to fight this fight, then my next fight, I would like to get somebody right outside the rankings, right there in the mix. Ideally that would be like July and then – I’ll at least get one more (after that) next year. Maybe two. Then after that I would like to fight to obviously fight a ranked guy. So hopefully a ranked guy in my third fight of next year.”
If Nickal careful career planning plays out, he expects to be trouble for every 185-pound name on the UFC roster. His ultimate goal is to claim that UFC belt and be an all-time great, but he want to maximize the path there.
“There’s a lot of good guys, but I like where I’m at,” Nickal said. “I feel like I’m a tough matchup for any of these guys, and they all want to fight me now, because I’m the worst that I’ll be. You’ll hear some of these guys talk about me and they want to fight me now and I’m like, ‘That’s smart, because where I’m at right now is not where I’m going to be where I’m at in six months, where I’m going to be at in a year.'”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 300.
