"This loss will be good for Bo in the long run. He wasn't brought up properly. No shame in losing to RDR" etc etc

[Rockapotomuss]

Bo was overconfident that his wrestling could carry him through, and he clearly neglected to do what was necessary to learn the clinch or submission game.

 

[Jstr]

He doesnt look fluid. At all.

Still, RDR is a horrible matchup for him.

 

[ElLunico]

Bo will never amount to much. He's a great wrestler but you can tell he doesn't react well to getting hit.

 

[Söze Aldo]

Bo was overconfident that his wrestling could carry him through, and he clearly neglected to do what was necessary to learn the clinch or submission game.

He needs to drop that arrogance now, or it'll likely be too late soon. He's nearly 30 and has probably spent 90% of his life training and drilling solely in Folkstyle wrestling. Can he humble himself and fully commit, starting today, to learning the other facets of mixed martial arts? It may already be nearly too late to catch-up.

 

[ultra321]

He needs to drop that arrogance now, or it'll likely be too late soon. He's nearly 30 and has probably spent 90% of his life training and drilling solely in Folkstyle wrestling. Can he humble himself and fully commit, starting today, to learning the other facets of mixed martial arts? It may already be nearly too late to catch-up.

Can He? Yes... Will He? Meh... we will see... I stand by my revised statement.. Ben Askren 2.0 more likley he becomes can crusher/gate keeper than a real threat to the title...

 

[Cheese_&_mma_lover]

He was overconfident because he has high IQ wrestling like the dagestanis so he thought he would be successful like them. The difference is those guys also have high IQ ground game as well. and those guys are from third world shit hole countries, so they have that dog in them.

Growing up in a chill affluent society made Bo Nickal soft. When he felt that heat of another man's will on him he broke.

He is in a mma fighter doom loop now. where he is mentally broken and loses fights over and over. And the learned helplessness keeps growing.

 

[TheMadHatter]

bo nickal was never that good

 

[Hymen Crusher]

Needs to actually wrestle. Fucking guy has trash hands and never wrestles. Go watch merab figure that out and bring half that wrestling and he would be a problem

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

"Just look at all these guys who aren't Bo and how they reacted to losing! He's obviously going to be like one of them!"

 

[Qays Stetkevich]

Not a big Bo fan, but holy shit some of you need to ease up on the guy. FFS you don't "lack heart" or "mental toughness" when you get Sagat Tiger Kneed in the spleen by a large Dutchman. I think we saw that he needs to make improvements, and maybe his ceiling is lower than previously thought, but that knee was killer. Angle, placement, power......[chef`s kiss].

p.s. Some of the imo disproportionate Bo-bashing after his first L also comes off as classless low-key RDR bashing. The guy out-subbed a sub guy, subbed a guy that a lot thought would starch him with ease, and now derailed the (second?) biggest hype-train in the UFC. Some hespec is due.

 

[Eric Silva 2.0]

It used to be ok for a fighter to take a loss. If MMA wants to avoid the pitfalls of boxing, fans need to accept fighters will lose and stop encouraging them to be protected

I agree with this but the sport seems to be going in the other direction. Bo was a guy that was obviously being 'hyped and handled'.

 

[fjodor]

He was never ma Nickal.

 

[fries in the bag]

corny ass wrote a long paragraph love letter to hoe nickal

 

[SalvadorAllende]

lol what? I'm not reading all fo that.

Bo sucks and I'm glad he got violently finished after all the trash he talked.

"dagestani killer" could not pass a dutch bjj guy.

 

[Oscar Madison]

Many people are not getting it. Sure, you can argue that not taking more frequent fights against lower competition didn't help his development. You can argue that a huge seasoned vet like RDR was simply too big of a leap. You can argue that he's still very early in his UFC career.

But the bottom line is I think you'd be missing the point: he simply isn't world class level talented for MMA. Period. He literally hasn't had any significant improvements in the past couple years. He's close to his ceiling already.

This is not a situation like Brock Lesnar where you're like holy fuck this talent level is insane and he's just still so raw. This isn't a guy who made the massive leaps like we saw in Brock vs Mir 1 vs 2, going from getting subbed to one of the most dominant ground performances in MMA history. This isn't Chris Weidman knocking out Uriah Hall and treating Mark Munoz like he never wrestled a day in his life, taking short notice fights with massive last minute weight cuts and and still coasting over Maia. This isn't Khamzat where you can blatantly see the incredible athleticism (for MMA) in the way that he moves around the cage and manipulates opponents.

Striking is one thing, and you can't expect Bo's to be super developed yet, but in MMA he's simply not a dominant grappler either. In modern MMA, it's also pretty much a prerequisite at this point to be incredibly tough mentally and physically durable. No one could question his mental toughness as a wrestler, to go through the grind to become a world class wrestler, you have to be tough beyond imagination....but that's apparently a different form of toughness than being Big Nog or Evander Holyfield in combat sports.

I see absolutely no reason to believe he will come back from this loss much stronger. At least with Aaron Pico, you could see the extreme physical talent for MMA from the beginning, he just lacked the defense and/or durability. I don't think he'll reach the highest level in the UFC because of those deficits, but I think he's much more talented than Bo for MMA.

It's like people have forgotten that guys like Jake Rosholt and Ed Ruth existed (though I would still say Ruth is more talented for MMA than Bo). Maybe they didn't have as much international wrestling experience as Bo, but who fucking cares at that point? They both won 3 NCAA titles each! At that point, does it really matter in an MMA context if Bo is a bit better in straight wrestling? It's virtually meaningless. And heck we've seen wrestlers like Aliakbari that are much more accomplished than Bo in international wrestling, plus are in the much more shallow HW division, and still are middle of the pack fighters. Aliakbari simply isn't supremely talented for MMA despite being astoundingly talented for wrestling at the highest levels of world competition. Why should it be surprising that Bo is in a similar position?

It reminds me of when people on Sherdog were arguing that Brock would beat Cain because he won an NCAA title while Cain's highest placement was 4th....and they somehow didn't realize how absurd that argument is. First of all, they didn't even wrestle in the same years, and second of all, the difference between 1st place and 4th place matters in straight wrestling....but within the context of MMA with all the other factors, that slight difference is absolutely meaningless.

They were also acting like Bilyal would walk in and he invincible in MMA simply due to his wrestling background. We never got to see it happen, but it wouldn't be that shocking if he got KO'd by Tim Johnson. You just never know.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct!

Piling on.

 

[AndrewGolota48]

Holy shit I just watched the fight again and it's even worse than I thought. Bo's whole gameplan in round 2 was to take RDR down and he simply couldn't. I think he was literally in shock and humiliated that he couldn't take down a BJJ guy WHATSOEVER in the second round and he mentally broke.

I'm not just trying to pile on, but it's honestly mind-blowing how different wrestling and MMA wrestling have become a this stage of the sport. A world class wrestler could not do a damn thing with a BJJ guy IN THE WRESTLING ASPECT. I truly think he went into shock over how helpless he felt in there in the area he absolutely mastered, yet doesn't translate to MMA.

 

[TempleoftheDog]

I agree with everything you're saying. I guess what made my cock hard was seeing him on DWCS going from mount and rolling over to his back to set up a triangle choke. That made me go wow, a wrestler of that caliber who isn't afraid of being on his back!? That spells trouble!

That’s why I watch DWCS. But I keep in mind.. It’s DWCS.

It’s not a fight in the UFC top 15.

Many fighters were getting finishes on DWCS. So you nod and say. This fighter might make some noise in the UFC.

So I just temper my thoughts. I need to see more than that. Especially in the actual UFC. A lot of fighters look really good in the minors, and DWCS.

But there are actual levels.

 

[joy2day]

If Bo can't even win the grappling, how is he ever going to beat someone good? His other skills certainly aren't great.

 

[ricc505]

I agree with this but the sport seems to be going in the other direction. Bo was a guy that was obviously being 'hyped and handled'.

You are right, I hate the hype from the UFC. I don't need to be sold a fighter. And I don't follow any social media because I don't care. Others have noted the predictable toxic nature here before and after fights. I'd hate to see the sport lose fighters or fights over such trivial nonsense

 

[AL-Tappo McSnappo]

Many people are not getting it. Sure, you can argue that not taking more frequent fights against lower competition didn't help his development. You can argue that a huge seasoned vet like RDR was simply too big of a leap. You can argue that he's still very early in his UFC career.

But the bottom line is I think you'd be missing the point: he simply isn't world class level talented for MMA. Period. He literally hasn't had any significant improvements in the past couple years. He's close to his ceiling already.

This is not a situation like Brock Lesnar where you're like holy fuck this talent level is insane and he's just still so raw. This isn't a guy who made the massive leaps like we saw in Brock vs Mir 1 vs 2, going from getting subbed to one of the most dominant ground performances in MMA history. This isn't Chris Weidman knocking out Uriah Hall and treating Mark Munoz like he never wrestled a day in his life, taking short notice fights with massive last minute weight cuts and and still coasting over Maia. This isn't Khamzat where you can blatantly see the incredible athleticism (for MMA) in the way that he moves around the cage and manipulates opponents.

Striking is one thing, and you can't expect Bo's to be super developed yet, but in MMA he's simply not a dominant grappler either. In modern MMA, it's also pretty much a prerequisite at this point to be incredibly tough mentally and physically durable. No one could question his mental toughness as a wrestler, to go through the grind to become a world class wrestler, you have to be tough beyond imagination....but that's apparently a different form of toughness than being Big Nog or Evander Holyfield in combat sports.

I see absolutely no reason to believe he will come back from this loss much stronger. At least with Aaron Pico, you could see the extreme physical talent for MMA from the beginning, he just lacked the defense and/or durability. I don't think he'll reach the highest level in the UFC because of those deficits, but I think he's much more talented than Bo for MMA.

It's like people have forgotten that guys like Jake Rosholt and Ed Ruth existed (though I would still say Ruth is more talented for MMA than Bo). Maybe they didn't have as much international wrestling experience as Bo, but who fucking cares at that point? They both won 3 NCAA titles each! At that point, does it really matter in an MMA context if Bo is a bit better in straight wrestling? It's virtually meaningless. And heck we've seen wrestlers like Aliakbari that are much more accomplished than Bo in international wrestling, plus are in the much more shallow HW division, and still are middle of the pack fighters. Aliakbari simply isn't supremely talented for MMA despite being astoundingly talented for wrestling at the highest levels of world competition. Why should it be surprising that Bo is in a similar position?

It reminds me of when people on Sherdog were arguing that Brock would beat Cain because he won an NCAA title while Cain's highest placement was 4th....and they somehow didn't realize how absurd that argument is. First of all, they didn't even wrestle in the same years, and second of all, the difference between 1st place and 4th place matters in straight wrestling....but within the context of MMA with all the other factors, that slight difference is absolutely meaningless.

They were also acting like Bilyal would walk in and he invincible in MMA simply due to his wrestling background. We never got to see it happen, but it wouldn't be that shocking if he got KO'd by Tim Johnson. You just never know.

Islam had a loss, and recovered from it and now is the p4p4 no. 1, but you can't lie to yourself, something Bo does, especial after the Paul Craig fight when everyone told him you need to fix your skills and he didn't listen.