It’s been a rough year for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight prospect Bo Nickal.
The three-time NCAA Division I national champion out of Penn State suffered the first loss of his mixed martial
arts (MMA) career at the hands of ex-ONE titleholder Reinier de Ridder in the UFC Des Moines co-main event back in May, then got demoted to the UFC 322 preliminary card after bragging about his pay-per-view (PPV) placement for his Nov. 15 return in New York City.
Looks like he won’t be retiring after all.
“I think the loss has been something that’s been really good for me, something that I’m grateful for,” Nickal said during the UFC 322 media day. “The hard part is just now it’s felt like a long time. I’ve been waiting and just working and grinding and excited to get back in there this weekend. I made a pretty arrogant comment that of course I would be on the main card. A lot of people have given me a lot of flack for that. Your guy’s wishes were fulfilled. I’ll be headlining the prelims. Congratulations everybody.”
Nickal (7-1) fights Brazilian bruiser Rodolfo Vieira (11-3) in the featured “Prelims” contest.
“I actually got way more love and support after my last loss than I did even my wins previous,” Nickal added. “It was something I was surprised with. I figured everybody would kind of jump ship and let me be. The amount of support and love that I had, I had probably 50 percent more text messages and people saying things like ‘keep your head up’ and ‘you’ll be back’ and stuff like that. There’s more people texting me than the people that texted me after I won fights. That was something I was really grateful for and really appreciative of.”
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