Bo Nickal is confident his next fight will happen at the UFC White House card in June and for the first time in his MMA career, he actually has an opponent he really wants to beat up.
Since joining the UFC roster as one of the most highly touted prospects in recent history, the three-time NCAA wrestling champion from Penn State has largely stuck to the mantra that he’ll fight whoever the UFC puts in front of him. Through five wins and one loss, Nickal hasn’t felt much animosity towards his opposition. For him, it’s just about the competition.
But that could all change if the UFC grants his wish to face Colby Covington on the White House lawn.
“Obviously that’s been the plan for me since after my last fight,” Nickal told MMA Fighting about a spot on the UFC White House card. “It would be a great honor to be able to compete on that card. It’s just going to be so historic. Opponent wise, I’m leaving it up to the UFC but I think that the Colby matchup makes so much sense, especially considering the last RAF event, how everything went. Then him declaring he’s going up to middleweight. That’s just something I feel like it’s the fight to make.
“For me, every single guy I’ve competed against up until this point in MMA, I haven’t really had motivation to beat that person specifically. The opponent was just the opponent. This one is definitely a little more personal obviously with a lot of the comments he’s made. I feel like it would be fun to be able to compete against somebody I actually want to fight. There’s just extra motivation for me, which would make it a lot of fun.”
The bad blood between Nickal and Covington started to build ahead of RAF 5 in January when the one-time UFC interim welterweight champion was preparing for a wrestling match against Luke Rockhold.
Rather than take aim at each other, Covington and Rockhold decided to unload on Nickal, his MMA career to this point, and his prospects for the future. Covington then ratcheted up his trash talk after Nickal didn’t compete at RAF 5 after his opponent Yoel Romero missed weight by seven pounds and he opted not to accept the matchup.
“So he misses weight by a couple of pounds? Big deal. Luke was 20 or 30 pounds bigger than me and I didn’t complain,” Covington said about Nickal’s decision during the RAF 5 post-fight press conference. “I went up a weight class. I weighed 197 with ankle weights on my feet and even the night before at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump. I stepped up, it didn’t matter.
“‘Bozo’ Nickals has no reason to talk any shit. He should go back and stop quitting in the octagon before he ever speaks my name again.”
While Nickal is confident he could thump Covington on the wrestling mats, he’s now much more interested in entering the cage to beat up the always outspoken welterweight, who has teased a potential move to 185 pounds.
The problem is Nickal doesn’t know if Covington would actually accept a fight against him if the UFC comes calling with that offer.
“The biggest problem is Colby’s not dumb,” Nickal explained. “Colby’s a smart guy. He, obviously, I don’t think would want to accept a fight against me. I think he knows what I would do to him in a fight. That would just not be really the best move for him in some ways. I think in other ways maybe he thinks it’s a win-win situation. Everybody would expect me to destroy him, he’s also going to get to compete on the White House card. It’s hard to say. I feel like he’s probably in his mind juggling a lot of things as well. Is it worth it for me to go get beat up in front of the whole world on the White House card but hey I still get to be on there, I still get to talk my crap, get my attention?
“Because he’s definitely a guy that’s more focused on the negative than the positive. It’s hard to say. I think that’s probably going to be the biggest obstacle is getting him to agree to it.”
Covington, a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, undoubtedly wants to get a spot on the historic UFC card at the White House, but it remains to be seen if he would be interested in fighting Nickal.
As much as he wants to smash Covington and possibly send him into retirement, Nickal admits that competing on the UFC White House card is what matters most — but until he hears otherwise he’s holding out hope for that fight.
“For sure, that’s the fight, the event what I want to be a part of,” Nickal said. “Regardless of the opponent, we’ll figure it out.”
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