Submission Radio<\/a>, former fighter and veteran analyst Kenny Florian gave his take on whether it was wise for Nickal to pass on the opportunity to wrestle Romero.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s tough because I\u2019m not quite sure what the perspective is from Nickal and why he decided not to,\u201d Florian said. \u201cIs he competing because he\u2019s trying to get better as a martial artist, a fighter, a wrestler, whatever it is, and kind of doing it for fun? Is he doing it because he\u2019s trying to notch yet another win and help the perception of him as an athlete, as a competitor, and perhaps he was concerned that if he did lose, especially against a guy in Yoel Romero who is an elite, elite wrestler, did he feel that he was going to hurt his brand even more?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know. It\u2019s a little bit of a concern because, again, this is not a mixed martial arts fight that\u2019s going to go down on his record and I still think if he lost, people would not see it so negatively. I don\u2019t know. I think that when he lost [to Reinier de Ridder] that kind of was a big blow to his ego and his momentum as well. I don\u2019t know, maybe that was on the back of his mind. He didn\u2019t want to deal with the criticism. But yeah, the way I would approach that, if I am a current UFC fighter, I\u2019m doing that to just get better at my craft. I\u2019m not taking a wrestling match so seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going against a guy in Yoel Romero, yes, he\u2019s older, but this is a guy who accomplished more in wrestling that Nickal did on the international, on the global circuit. When you\u2019re talking about the Olympics, world championships, all that stuff, no shame in losing to someone like Yoel Romero, but I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following an outstanding collegiate wrestling career, Nickal transitioned to MMA and found immediate success, finishing his first two amateur fights and first five pro fights in the first round, including appearances in the UFC and Dana White\u2019s Contender Series. His hype train hit a snag when he won a forgettable decision over Paul Craig and then nearly derailed completely when he was finished by the more experienced Reinier de Ridder to suffer his first loss.<\/p>\n
Despite Nickal\u2019s recent hurdles, Florian still considers him championship material, so long as he can refine the rougher edges of his game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s his ceiling like?\u201d Florian said. \u201cI still think he has a ton of potential. I think he\u2019s a phenomenal athlete. One does not achieve what he did in NCAA wrestling at the Division-I level unless you\u2019re a phenomenal athlete. You wouldn\u2019t achieve that if you didn\u2019t have an incredible mindset and all those things that go with it. I think he can apply that same kind of approach to mixed martial arts, but I am concerned when I hear certain things that he says and maybe certain decisions that he makes. I\u2019m concerned with the ego piece because you will be humbled in training.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care what kind of athlete you are, what your background is, if you\u2019re a world champion in this or that, mixed martial arts is such a vast ocean. There\u2019s so many things that can be exposed in your game and if you\u2019re afraid of doing striking or bringing in a certain training partner or not wanting to look bad in training, then that\u2019s a concern. That is a concern. And the fact that he largely has been training with a small camp. Yes, it\u2019s [American Top Team]-affiliated, but he\u2019s not at the actual ATT challenging himself against other elite guys from what I can tell. So I don\u2019t know, but as far as an athlete, I think the sky\u2019s the limit. I still think he can be a world champion in this sport, it just comes down to how he prepares his training and what kind of mindset he has moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
As contentious as fans can be with Nickal, the 29-year-old hasn\u2019t shied away from responding to criticism, which Florian sees as both a pro and a con. He wondered if Nickal\u2014who returned to the win column at UFC 322 with a spectacular head kick knockout over Rodolfo Vieira\u2014would be better off embracing who he is as opposed to feeling like he has to choose and sell a certain persona.<\/p>\n
Florian added that he understands why Nickal approaches the business the way he does, and that his attitude could be why he\u2019s experienced so much success\u2014and why he hits a wall every now and then.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a double-edged sword,\u201d Florian said. \u201cIn many cases, it can fuel you, like in training and for what you do and being pissed off at the fans or being pissed off that you lost or whatever or dealing with criticism, but I do think at the end of the day\u2014and this is way easier said than done\u2014not caring what people think about you is a superpower if you\u2019re a professional athlete or someone in the limelight in some way, shape, or form.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to focus on what you\u2019re doing and if you\u2019re just concerned with everybody else, your ego ultimately is going to restrict your development. Maybe that\u2019s why he didn\u2019t wrestle Yoel Romero.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bo Nickal continues to raise questions about his combat sports career even when he doesn\u2019t compete. It was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-424202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}