Bo Nickal isn’t backing down from his stance against Jordan Burroughs, despite the backlash he received after criticizing the Olympic champion’s comments during the 2024 NCAA Wrestling Championships broadcast.
Namely, Burroughs had suggested targeting the injured leg of Penn State’s Carter Starocci if they were to face each other in the Olympic wrestling trials.
Nickal, who won three NCAA titles at Penn State, openly condemned Burroughs for his remarks, sparking a public feud between the two wrestlers.
Reflecting on the incident a few weeks later, Nickal reiterated his lack of regrets and maintained that Burroughs was the one with the problem:
I’m good with everybody.
I think that I didn’t like what he had to say about one of my teammates and close friends, so I let that be known.
And it’s him with the problem, so he can’t really do anything to me at the end of the day.
For Nickal, it was all about standing up for your teammate – nothing personal:
People have their opinion about it and he has his opinion about it.
But, for me, if you’re coming at, to me, a family member, a brother, a teammate, then I’m going to step up and say something because I don’t appreciate that, so that’s really all it came down to at the end.
It’s not personal.
Had it been any other guy in his position that would’ve said something about my teammate, I would have done the same thing.
