If it wasn’t already bad enough for Bo Nickal having suffered his first professional loss, he has now been mocked by the current middleweight champion, Dricus Du Plessis.
This past Saturday at UFC Des Moines, bluechip prospect Bo Nickal suffered his first loss in professional MMA when he was knocked out in the second round by Reinier De Ridder.
Following the fight, fans claimed that Nickal had been ‘fraud checked’, once claiming that he would destroy Khamzat Chimaev in a potential fight.
It is likely that Chimaev will fight for the middleweight title next after Dricus Du Plessis provided a positive update on the timeline of that fight.
Du Plessis reacts to Bo Nickal’s first UFC loss
Despite once being considered a guaranteed future champion in the UFC, Nickal will now return to the drawing board and will likely be matched up with several non-ranked opponents before being given a shot at a ranked fight again.
And because of the American’s confident mindset because of his decorated wrestling background, Du Plessis has admitted he was satisfied after watching Nickal lose.
“I have no problem with Bo Nickal’s hype, what I do have a problem with is, he was talking about people who have done what he has never done,” Du Plessis began to explain in an interview with Sias Du Plessis.
“This is not wrestling, this is not wrestling, my good man. And he found that out the hard way. I think he thought he was gonna walk through Reinier and I thought Reinier had a beautiful game plan.
“You’ve got to be careful how you talk in this game. You start talking when you get there, he’s fought nobodies… Humble pie does wonderful things for a man and I think he got served a full pie, it was satisfying to watch. Bo Nickal gave up mentally,” Du Plessis continued.
Who could Bo Nickal fight next?
There is no doubt that the 29-year-old could bounce back from his disappointing loss, however, he will once again need to fight some lesser known opponents.
Brunno Ferreira could be a decent level striker to test the American in his next fight, as he will undoubtedly need to make adjustments to his training to improve that area of his game.
Christian Leroy Duncan would pose a similar sort of test to Nickal, with both fighters benefitting from the test of each other.