Rodolfo Vieira and Bo Nickal finally meet inside the octagon Saturday, competing in the preliminary portion of UFC 322 at Madison Square Garden, and it\u2019s a matchup that intrigues the jiu-jitsu legend.<\/p>\n
The UFC wanted to book this clash for the last MSG card in November 2024, but Vieira was dealing with a hand injury at the time. A lot has changed since, with Vieira now training at Sao Paulo\u2019s The Fighting Nerds gym and Nickal no longer being an undefeated middleweight, but Vieira still sees him as a complicated style to prepare for.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really is a very big fight, right?\u201d Vieira told MMA Fighting. \u201cI think it will be the biggest \u2014 I think, no, it will be the biggest fight of my career. And one of the toughest, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nickal carried a ton of hype last November, winning a decision over the experienced Paul Craig. The decorated wrestler was back in action in May, but lost by second-round knockout to Reinier de Ridder. Vieira now faces an under-pressure Nickal instead of a fully hyped prospect, and says that only makes him more dangerous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really could\u2019ve been surprised by his striking then, which he showed really well against Paul Craig,\u201d Vieira said. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s as much hype from fans or critics this time, but I\u2019m approaching this fight very seriously, as always, and expecting a well-rounded opponent. I\u2019m not focusing on his last fight or where he didn\u2019t perform like he used to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe studied all his fights, not just that one. Nothing changes for me. Not the loss, not the knockout, not the weaknesses he showed. I\u2019m preparing like I\u2019m fighting the same Bo Nickal from before, with all that hype behind him. I\u2019m getting ready for everything because anything can happen in this fight. He could try to take me down, or he might want to stand and trade. It\u2019s actually hard to predict, because he\u2019s shown himself to be a pretty complete fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nickal is one of the most experienced wrestlers to ever transition to mixed martial arts, winning three NCAA wrestling championships, and then appearing twice on Dana White\u2019s Contender Series prior to a 4-0 start in the UFC. Vieira, on the other hand, is a multiple-time jiu-jitsu champion and ADCC gold medalist who isn\u2019t used to being threatened with takedowns in MMA.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the only way he won\u2019t take me down is if he doesn\u2019t want to,\u201d Vieira laughed. \u201cI\u2019ll be ready, you know? I\u2019ve been training a lot of jiu-jitsu, a lot from guard, because I know there\u2019s a good chance it\u2019ll happen. This is MMA. I can\u2019t go in there thinking he\u2019ll only shoot takedowns and then get caught by a big overhand or a cross, because he throws those hard, and knocks me out. I\u2019m preparing for everything. If he takes me down, I\u2019ll be ready to fight from there. It would actually be the first time [I\u2019m taken down] because in all my fights, I was always the one preparing to take the opponent down. But this time it\u2019s a bit different because we know how good his wrestling is. There\u2019s a good chance I\u2019ll end up on bottom, but also a good chance I\u2019ll sweep or get back up. That\u2019s why I\u2019ve been putting myself in those positions a lot in training.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vieira won a decision over Tresean Gore in August\u2014his debut as a member of The Fighting Nerds\u2014to rebound from a decision loss to Andre Petroski. With a UFC record of 6-3, Vieira celebrates entering a cage three times in a calendar year, a first for him in MMA, because you learn in training, but \u201creally grow and evolve\u201d with fights.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis fight, no matter the result, is going to take me to another level,\u201d Vieira said. \u201cI\u2019m doing everything I can because he\u2019s becoming an unpredictable fighter, and that\u2019s dangerous. When you fight a striker, you know he\u2019s never going to try to take you down, he\u2019s going to punch and kick. But when you fight grapplers or jiu-jitsu guys who develop solid striking, or wrestlers who improve their standup, you never really know what\u2019s coming. The guy can decide to keep it standing and strike, or shoot for takedowns at any moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UFC was built around the premise that jiu-jitsu is the best martial art, and Royce Gracie was able to prove that point in 1993. Three decades later, Vieira said that tapping out an NCAA champion would be a great reason to be proud.<\/p>\n
\u201cSubmitting anyone already makes me super happy and proud,\u201d Vieira said, \u201cBut submitting a guy of that caliber would be something else. It would definitely be a reason for huge celebration and pride in my work.\u201d<\/p>\n
To prepare for that task Vieira had the chance to share the mats and talk to a man who has done that many times before: Demian Maia, a two-time UFC title challenger who has finished the likes of Chael Sonnen and Ben Askren in the UFC.<\/p>\n
Vieira picked Maia\u2019s brain ahead of UFC 322.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an incredibly positive experience for me and for my career,\u201d Vieira said of the training session in Sao Paulo, Brazil. \u201cWe\u2019d actually trained together once before in South Korea, at an event I was fighting in \u2014 he was there because he was sponsored by the same brand. We did a light gi session since I was about to fight, so we had to take it easy. But this time it was a hard training session and I could really feel how good he still is. Super technical, super precise. I got to see that firsthand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked a lot, too. I really enjoyed training with him and getting to understand his mindset. Talking to him, I could see why his grappling game was so dominant. He managed to impose it on anyone \u2014 strikers, wrestlers, top-level opponents. I think it\u2019s because he truly believed in his style and trained it every single day. Even when he trained boxing, he would include takedowns and clinch work. He wasn\u2019t a guy who just trained wrestling or grappling once in a while, he worked on it every day, constantly refining what he did best. I think that was the key to his career success.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rodolfo Vieira and Bo Nickal finally meet inside the octagon Saturday, competing in the preliminary portion of UFC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-283847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","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\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}