News Bo Nickal calls Khamzat's wrestling 'trash': 'I wouldn't even say mid'

[spinitch]

To be clear, Bo isn't randomly making these comments, he is being directly asked questions about Khamzat and answering. This is an hour+ long interview and Bo comes off reasonably humble and thoughtful overall.

He has repeatedly said he needs to improve and gain experience before the 'big' fights, but once he does, believes he'll be the best. That is a pretty based attitude to have at 27 years old.

The context of what is being discussed here is Bo being asked to comment on the footage he's seen of amateur wrestling matches. For someone world class like Bo, it should not be surprising he is not impressed. Khamzat was wrestling in a small northern European country with a small talent pool for wrestling and they were young opponents.

“It’s trash,” Nickal said i. This comment along with a few others along the way could use humility. Bo qualified as barely mid level which was ok. I did not watch all of Bo’s commentary so perhaps he over did it just this time. Bo is not a professional commentator either so he can misspeak like most folks do on occasion. Of course Bo a much more accomplished wrestler can evaluate Khamzat wrestling he has seen.

 

[The-AxeMurderer]

Well damn, everything else was true though lol.

 

[jk7707]

Bo is doing what makes you money in the UFC. Talking shit about contenders. Problem for him is that his best win is Jamie fuckin Pickett. He should fight again in a few months with a decent step up in competition. Fight somebody like Mark Andre Barriault or Rodolfo Viera. He dominates guys like that, then his shit talking starts sounding legit.

 

[StonedLemur]

Costa fought Luke at altitude, wasn’t his best showing due to that. Luke looked gassed as well for that matter

Luke was gassed as fuck, yet still blasted Costa with the fuck you punch.
He also got on top of him and bled all over his face.
All bad optics sir.

 

[richardjohnson]

Is the label The Dagestani Slayer a hope kind of thing? Has he ever fought a Dagestani?

No, but let’s not allow facts to get in the way of a good story

 

[CrimsonFan]

Weird to see the UFC go the Bellator route and hype a 3-0 or 4-0 wrestler with practically no MMA experience. Will be interesting to see if he can rise or if he will be another Aaron Pico type.

Apart from a loss to injury, Aaron Pico has been absolutely killing it in Bellator. He's won 7 fights in a row and has been looking stellar. And he's only 26

I don't think it's fair to write his career off yet. He could very well still live up to the hype. It just didn't happen right away he had two rough losses.

 

[trenton123]

Costa fought Luke at altitude, wasn’t his best showing due to that. Luke looked gassed as well for that matter

Middleweights and up should not be allowed to fight at high altitude. I'd prefer they never do at all.

 

[Sticko]

Is that real? Nobody attempted to take him down in 5 matches?

Bo is a 3x NCAA wrestling national champion, why would anyone try to take him down in MMA unless they're an ADCC grappling champ? Bo hasn't fought anybody like that in MMA yet.

His first pro MMA fight was against a guy who looked like he just fell off a carnival wagon and Bo knocked him out in like 30 seconds without even trying to wrestle. IIRC Bo won his third fight by triangle but he transitioned into that position, his opponent didn't take him down.

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

What does that have to do with having five training camps in roughly one year, which, regardless of opponent are required and never easy?

he's a div1 3 time champion wrestler taking down guys who took a few striking classes and stepped up to make a few hundred bucks on a weekend LUL "having five training camps" like he was fighting jon Jones, he didn't need anything extra other than make weight until his UFC debut.

Training camps aren't required, Michael Bisping said he never did a training camp until he was on tuf just his regular training to stay ready and taking any fight he could

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

Forget khamzat I'd be impressed if Bo got by GM3.

 

[jsbx45]

I am really excited to see how Bo plays out here. Seems like he's got a lot of potential. Seems like a really really overconfident thing to be saying though.v

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

Way too much MMA math in here. Khamzat's wrestling probably does suck, but he isn't a wrestler. He's a grappler and does MMA. FFS they're different sports.

Kamzat is a wrestler he was Sweden's national champion 3x before mma.

And Sweden is pretty good wrestling country.

 

[bartleby929]

he needs to win a few more fights before calling out the wolf

 

[Conan the K-9]

Kamzat is a wrestler he was Sweden's national champion 3x before mma.

And Sweden is pretty good wrestling country.

Sweden is good in greco, but guess if Khamzat choose to wrestle greco or did he mainly try to bully guys in freestyle?

 

[TITS]

Nickal is going to get Pat Downey'd.

Do you know why he was cut from Bellator?

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

Sweden is good in greco, but guess if Khamzat choose to wrestle greco or did he mainly try to bully guys in freestyle?

I'm not a big enough fan to know any of that. But his titles are freestyle.

 

[Lavitz]

Sweden is good in greco, but guess if Khamzat choose to wrestle greco or did he mainly try to bully guys in freestyle?

Freestyle.

Though he doesn’t have any senior results outside of Sweden in freestyle.

 

[Captain Insano]

Gonna be fun if we got Bo vs Chimaev one day

 

[Dim1]

No Dickal

 

[Poatan Power]

Kamzat is a wrestler he was Sweden's national champion 3x before mma.

And Sweden is pretty good wrestling country.

I'm not familiar enough with wrestling prestige to know what that means (seriously). Like, is someone who's a national champion in the U.S. 10% better? 75% better? Is a typical D1 guy equivalent or more/less accomplished? And is it the same style of wrestling between both countries? That's why I said "probably" but even if I recant that portion of it (that wasn't really my point/intention), what I really mean is it's MMA. Pure wrestling ability is part of it, but, Edwards took down Usman.