Bo Nickal said something wild on a Monday, which is my favorite genre of Monday. Ariel Helwani posted the clip on X, and the line reads like it came from the passenger seat of a car with the windows down and the volume at 30: “The only MMA fighter that can actually compete with a real wrestler is me. Straight up. [Islam] would get killed.”
I enjoy this. I have spent years begging for more villains and fewer champions reciting the same paragraph about respecting every opponent. A guy walking into the room and declaring himself the last real wrestler in a sport absolutely stuffed with wrestlers is the kind of thing I would happily watch at a press conference while somebody’s cousin gets tackled by security. But liking the energy and buying the point are two separate purchases. On the point, Bo is winning a debate that nobody signed up for.
Nobody Is Trying to Beat Islam on a Wrestling Mat
Look at how people in the sport are actually talking about Makhachev this week. Charles Oliveira was asked about Carlos Prates, and his take was that Ian Garry already showed Prates how to do it. His answer had zero to do with takedown defense or scoring points from the top. It was about kicks.
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“If he lands those kicks to the ribs and calves like Garry, he could catch Islam off guard,” Oliveira said. He followed it with the second half of the plan: “If Islam doesn’t secure a finish in the first or second round and Prates maintains his composure, he has everything he needs to win.”
That’s the conversation. Chop the legs, dig the body, survive the early rounds, keep your head. Nobody on the planet is drawing up a game plan where the winning move is outscrambling Islam Makhachev under folkstyle rules with a ref holding up colored wristbands.
So could Nickal be right in a vacuum? Sure, maybe. A pure wrestling match with no punches and no cage, Bo might do damage. I don’t know and neither does anyone else, because that match is never happening, and the version of Islam that matters gets to punch you in the face when you shoot. Arguing about it is like debating whether Michael Jordan beats LeBron in a free throw contest. Great for the group chat. Worth nothing when the actual Finals tip off.
The claim also has a built-in escape hatch, which is my least favorite kind of trash talk. You can’t lose an argument about a match that will never be booked. The best talk in this sport comes from people who name a fight that can really happen and then go make it happen. This is the opposite of that.
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The Guy He Should Be Yelling About Is Joe Pyfer
Here’s where I lose a little patience. Nickal has a real fight on the books, and it’s a big one. He announced that his bout with Joe Pyfer is off UFC 335 and will instead headline a UFC Cleveland event in February, per Spinnin Backfist. Pyfer has already responded. That is a main event with two guys who don’t seem to like each other, which is exactly the kind of matchup I want promoted with a flamethrower.
Instead, Nickal spent his airtime on a man who isn’t on his schedule and has no reason to answer him. Pyfer is right there. Pyfer wants the smoke. Every minute Bo spends daydreaming about Islam is a minute he isn’t selling the fight people can actually buy.
And Makhachev does not look like a man losing sleep over any of this. His week, from what’s floating around online, consisted of trolling his friends with “2-3 years Turkey and forget” and apparently planning a hunting vacation. Alexander Volkanovski told TMZ Sports that he and Islam have already talked about a trip to Dagestan, and he was very committed to the bit: “I’m going to go to Dagestan, in the mountains, horseback hunting, hunting on horseback, catching whatever we catch and then cooking it.” He added, “I’m telling you, it’s going to happen.”
Islam is out here organizing a guys’ trip on horseback. Bo is out here telling Helwani he’d kill him in a sport neither of them is competing in. One of those men seems a lot more relaxed.
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Bo Has Earned Some Volume
To be fair to Nickal, he isn’t talking from nowhere. This past summer he stopped Kyle Daukaus at UFC Freedom 250, the event at the White House. That’s a stoppage on about the biggest novelty stage this sport has ever built, and I’ll give him all the credit for it. A guy who finishes people on a card like that is allowed to talk loud.
He just needs to point the microphone at the right target. Calling your shot is the best thing a fighter can do, but the shot has to be at somebody standing in front of you. In February, in Cleveland, that somebody is Joe Pyfer. If Nickal walks through Pyfer in a headliner, I’ll gladly listen to whatever he wants to say about Islam afterward. Until then, the only wrestling match on his calendar has a cage around it and a guy across from him who throws punches.
