Bo Nickal has a few ideas about his next opponent in the UFC, but doesn’t expect to face another highly touted prospect like Shara “Bullet” Magomedov.
Coming off a win over Paul Craig at UFC 309, Nickal is already looking towards the future with hopes to soon face some ranked competition as he continues to evolve and progress in his career. While there are plenty of names available in the top 15, the three-time NCAA champion wrestler knows the UFC won’t feed him a pure striker like Magomedov just yet because they’d be killing off one of their most hyped fighters with both of them sporting similar undefeated records in the octagon.
“They wouldn’t match it up,” Nickal said about the fight when speaking to the Pound-for-Pound podcast. “It would be an easy fight but for me, there’s no problem in that fight. But let’s talk about it realistically.”
When it comes to opponents the UFC might consider, Nickal believes he’s reached the point where the rankings are a natural next step, but he’s not shooting for the moon when thinking about opponents.
While he stopped short from calling anybody out in particular, Nickal threw out a few suggestions based on the fighters who currently occupy spots in the bottom part of the middleweight rankings.
“Any guy in the top 15, from [No. 15 to 10], is a tough fight,” Nickal said. “There’s nobody in the UFC that isn’t good, right? You can take any of these guys, even these guys that I’m knocking out and destroying, put them on a regional promotion and they’re an all-star. They’re the best guy in the entire organization. It’s something for me, I’m totally excited to fight all the best guys. Anybody in the 10 to 15 range poses interesting tests, interesting threats.
“I don’t know the top 15 exactly but I’m thinking guys like [Michel] Pereira, Anthony Hernandez is there, Shara Bullet, [Roman] Kopylov, [Roman] Dolidze, [Paulo] Costa. Even a guy I know he bounces up and down from 170 to [185 pounds] but Kevin Holland, he’s got a lot of knockout wins. So guys like that, they all pose interesting threats. They’re all guys I could have trouble with but at the same time, I believe in my skill set, I believe in what I’m capable of doing and as I continue to train, and work more on the striking, work more on the jiu-jitsu and blending it all together, I think I can also dominate a lot of those guys and make it look easy.”
As much as Nickal wants to reach his ultimate goal of becoming UFC middleweight champion and then eventually conquering the top of the pound-for-pound rankings, he’s also quick to remember that he barely has any experience compared to many of the opponents he’s going to be facing soon.
That’s one reason why Nickal was actually happy he spent 15 minutes in the octagon with Craig at UFC 309 because it gave him valuable time and experience after he essentially tore through his first few opponents without any real resistance.
Now as he plans to tackle the top 15 fighters in the world, Nickal understands there’s no room for error.
“I’ve been fighting MMA professionally just over two years,” Nickal said. “I started in the late summer of 2022 and now I’m the featured bout at [Madison Square Garden] the end of 2024. So where am I going to be at the end of 2026? I think the trajectory is really high and all I’ve got to do is stay on that same path.
“I know the work that I put in everyday. I don’t think anyone puts in as much work as me not only when I’m looking at the physical, technical training side of it but the film study and just trying to develop my fight IQ, I don’t think anybody watches as much film as I do. I think that’s where I’m making up a lot of ground on these guys and I’ll continue to make up ground.”
