Though he still has to prove himself in MMA, Bo Nickal is convinced that he could use his grappling skills to much of his advantage against Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya.
Nickal is a three-time NCAA Division I national wrestling champion. Plus, given that he is 3-0 in his professional MMA career so far – with all three of his wins being first-round finishes… It isn’t too difficult to understand where his confidence is coming from.
Namely, he wasn’t too impressed with the grappling performance of either Pereira nor Adesanya, in their recent middleweight division title fight:
As far styles go, that’s a great matchup for me. I’ve watched their fight a couple times, and the grappling (is where I’d win).
The striking exchanges are super impressive – that goes without saying. They’re absolutely elite strikers.
But when they get ahold of each other, it’s just almost, like, funny.
Nickal also added that his opinion isn’t “controversial” by any means:
Like, I’m laughing at how they’re moving and what they’re doing and stuff. And maybe they feel that way about me when I’m hitting pads and hitting the bag and stuff.
But I just feel like, if I grabbed ahold of either of those guys, it wouldn’t go well for them. And I think everybody knows that, so that’s not something that’s a shocking statement or that’s pretty outlandish, in my opinion.
