Bo Nickal has nothing but praise for Khamzat Chimaev even though they could be on a collision course in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Chimaev made a case for middleweight title contention with a first-round submission win over Robert Whittaker at UFC 308 last month. The undefeated Chechen-born Swede has has relied on his elite grappling during his rise to prominence, but Nickal, a former three-time NCAA Division I champion, could be the answer to Chimaev’s suffocating style.
Nickal himself has also been impressed with Chimaev’s wrestling since he first saw “Borz” choke out John Phillips in Abu Dhabi in his UFC debut in 2020. However, the Penn State alum agrees that he could stylistically pose the toughest threat to Chimaev. Nickal is also aware that a potential matchup against Chimaev is a long way off.
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“I’ve been super impressed with him I think since the very first time I watched him fight,” Nickal told Submission Radio. “Which was his first fight in the UFC over COVID in Abu Dhabi, that I thought that this guy is exceptional. It’s not any different than anybody else has thought. I think that grappling, he’s definitely at the highest level in MMA. You saw what he did to a super tough guy in Robert Whittaker. So you can’t take that away from him. And I feel like, yeah, a lot of people have said that when you look at matchups, that I’m probably the only guy that could really match him in that department. And I think that hopefully, eventually that’s a fight that we’ll see. I got a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of fights in between now and then for me because he is right up there at the title shot.”
Nickal’s first step towards making it to the rankings would be to beat Paul Craig at UFC 309 on Saturday in their main card matchup at the Madison Square Garden in New York. Nickal is undefeated in six pro outings — all finishes — and is fresh off a submission win over Cody Brundage at UFC 300 this past April.
