Wrestling under 23 world champion & NCAA All American wrestler Bo Nickal has finally made the plunge and embraced Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the Gi. He took a picture at one of his training sessions wearing his fresh new white belt. He’s been training with fellow wretsling champion Jason at The Mat Factory BJJ Academy in Pittsburgh PA.
Bo has in the past trained at ATT Coconut Creek Florida and is planning to transition into MMA after wrestling.
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Late last year, the world’s best No Gi grappler Gordon Ryan faced Wrestling world champion Bo Nickal in a modified rules grappling match where leglocks were not allowed. Ryan was able to bring the fight to the ground 3 times with scissor takedowns but was not able to maintain top position since Nickal scrambled out of bounds every time. Ryan attempted the scissor a few more times, but this time Nickal was wise to it and stuffed all the attempts. Nickal played it safe, with a game plan of not taking it to the ground too early so as to not give Ryan a chance to use his Jiu-Jitsu.
At one point Ryan was so frustrated with Nickal not attempting to take him down that he gave him his leg as bate and also turned his back to him. Nickal reacted by pushing him away and foot sweeping him and at one point, he seized the moment and executed a beautiful suplex. The fight did finally get to the ground with about 10 mins left and Ryan was immediately able to set up his shoulder crush sequence (that swept Buchecha at ADCC) and set up a sneaky triangle that ultimately led to a submission victory…
When interviewed by Flograppling Nickal was asked about those scissor takedowns and their effectiveness. He stated that those are also wrestling techniques and that he was used to them.
On the other hand Gordon Ryan gave props to Nickal for stepping out of his comfort zone and shared his thoughts on social media. For him he was able to take down the world champion wrestler 3 times:
After finishing one of the most fun matches of my life here are my thoughts. First of all, stalling calls were not as strict as id hoped, ibjjf rules state that if you leave the mat in a secure position that you start in the same position in the middle of the mat, i had 3 or 4 cross ashi entrances where he dragged me out of bounds and we were started on the feet again which was not something i was expecting and kept the match standing far longer than i had expected.
Overall i scored 3 takedowns with kani basami and he scored 1 with a huge back arch which finally got the match down to the ground after around 13 minutes. After being on the ground for roughly 1 minute i was able to enter into shoulder crunch sumi gaeshi. As he defended i moved into sankaku (triangle) and he tried his best to pull out. Similar to my match with josh barnett i played the dilemma between juji gatame (arm bar) and sankaku (triangle). As he tried to pull out of the triangle before my legs were locked i threatened juji which forced him to pressure back into the triangle to avoid arm extension. Once the triangle was locked he tried 1 last slam and ended up tapping.
Bo Nickal was recently interviewed and asked about how it was grappling Gordon Ryan.
Nickal was obviously not happy with himself for having lost the match but thinks he did well considering the circumstances:
“I trained Jiu-Jitsu twice and was able to go 13 minutes with the world champion. If I trained Jiu-Jitsu for 6 months, I would beat him.”
He talks about it at the 10:20 min mark:
