Bo Nickal says he was one of the names approached to replace Khamzat Chimaev at UFC on ABC 6.
Chimaev (13-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) withdrew from Saturday’s headliner vs. Robert Whittaker (25-7 MMA, 16-5 UFC) at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia due to illness. The UFC called numerous fighters as potential replacements – including Nickal, before landing on Ikram Aliskerov.
Nickal (6-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) revealed that he got a call, but was unreachable for days before he actually saw the message.
“I did get a call, yeah,” Nickal said on his YouTube channel. “Unfortunately, I got a call while I was in the mountains of Montana and I didn’t get back to cell service for three days. I came back into cell service to a few text messages saying, ‘Call me back, call me back, call me back,’ and it was too late.”
Nickal admits flying half way across the world to fight Whittaker wouldn’t have been ideal, but says the UFC’s offer was a big one.
“I’m not going to disclose numbers, but they were up there,” Nickal said. “But it was just too late. I couldn’t even really consider it because they had already kind of figured everything out, the way they were going to do it because I was gone.”
Nickal thinks a fight with Chimaev is inevitable, but questions his recent inactivity. Chimaev fought just once in the past two years – a majority win over Kamaru Usman at UFC 294.
“The dude’s losing his aura a bit,” Nickal said. “I don’t think he’s over-training. I think he’s over partying. I don’t know. What else would it be? I’ve just heard rumors about him and Till and stuff, like crazy stuff.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ABC 6.
