Exclusive: Bo Nickal on Khamzat Chimaev, WWE crossover, upcoming clash with Reinier de Ridder at UFC Fight Night & more

The rising UFC Middleweight star has a clean record inside the octagon!

Since the transition into MMA from freestyle wrestling, Bo Nickal has quickly made a name for himself, edging his name in fans’ minds who want him to face top contenders even though he is still unranked in the  UFC, that’s how impressive his rise has been.

While Bo’s last outing against Paul Craig wasn’t an impressive beatdown as fans have come to expect of him, he nonetheless kept his undefeated record, winning all three rounds. However, fans were not happy with his performance, and neither is Nickal himself, who wants to shake off the bad taste of his last match.

Bo has participated in a total of seven fights in his MMA career, with five of them ending in just the first round; only his last two matches have gone to the second and third rounds, respectively. His last fight was also the first win that went to the judge’s cards.

He is now set to battle the former two-division Champion in ONE Championship, Reinier de Ridder, who has bounced back with back-to-back wins following his unceremonious title losses in ONE Championship. The two Middleweights are set to battle in the co-main event this Saturday in Iowa.

The card will be headlined by Bantamweights Cory Sandhagen and Deiveson Figueiredo, and the card will emanate from the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa, United States.

Ahead of his fight with RDR this Saturday, Nickal sat down with Khel Now for an exclusive interview. Bo discussed his upcoming fight, criticized his last performance, talked about a potential future clash with Khamzat Chimaev, and shared his thoughts on a possible Middleweight title showdown between Dricus du Plessis and Chimaev.

Have you re-watched your last fight with Paul Craig & how would you rate your performance looking back?

“Yeah, I’ve re-watched it many times and I think that you know there when I look at the performance I did some things well, but I definitely made some mistakes. And so I always look for things to improve upon and I found a lot of things to improve on so that was exciting for me.”

What do you think of this matchup? Why do you think fans should be excited for this?

“I’m excited for it personally because I think that RDR (Reinier de Ridder) is one of the best guys in the world, you know. Of course, he’s number 13 ranked in the world in the UFC. But I think that he’s got a ton of experience and he presents interesting challenges.

So I train hard for the fight and I think that for me what excites me about it is just being able to bring it the whole time, go 100% and just, you know, fight hard from whistle to whistle.”

RDR plans to force you to grapple. What’s your game plan for Saturday & how do you see the fight unfolding?

“I think that no matter where the fight goes, on the feet, on the ground, I feel comfortable and confident and I hope that, you know, he tries to force the grappling positions. I think that would be present interesting challenges for myself.

And I also think that, you know, that situation favors me as well. So looking forward to fighting a guy that is looking to use a bunch of different tools, right? Like I kind of my last fight was just just striking so it’ll be exciting to, you know, have to do the full scope of MMA in this fight.”

When asked to rate his striking on a scale of 1 to 10 right now, Nickal replied, “So for me, there’s no end result. There’s no like 10 out of 10 that would be, oh, he’s a perfect striker. I’m focused on development, improving, and getting better. And I do that little by little every day in training. So I got a lot of room to improve.”

Meaning of a win this Saturday, 2025 goals & fighting for UFC gold

“A win this Saturday would be massive. You know, this would be the biggest win of my career and I trained and prepared as so. So, you know, for me the opportunity is something I’m really grateful for and excited about. And I’m looking to make the most of it this Saturday.”

Commenting on his goals for the rest of the year, Bo said, “I would love to fight, you know, at least one or two more times this year. You know, if I could get three fights in this year, that would be great.”

“And I think that as I move into the rankings, I’m only going to have to fight one or two fights before I get right into the title contention, top five and, you know, fight for that championship belt.”

Khamzat Chimaev, everybody’s always looking at him in the division. Is that a matchup that you see as happening this year?

“I don’t think it’ll happen this year. I think that if you look at myself and Khamzat both with where we’re at, he’s, you know, looking to fight for the belt. I have to fight a couple more times. And so I think that maybe 2026 would be the year that we match up.”

It looks like Dricus Du Plessis will defend his title against Khamzat – how do you see that fight playing out?

“I think that’ll be an amazing fight. I think both guys are incredibly strong. They have, you know, a really strong belief in themselves and they fight very hard. So I feel like overall, I would lean a little bit towards Khamzat, but the longer the fight goes, I think it would favor Du Plessis because his cardio is pretty great.”

You’ve expressed interest in a future WWE run (following the Brock Lesnar path) Is that something you seriously see yourself pursuing down the line?

“Yeah, absolutely. You know, if it makes sense, I think that it would be a ton of fun and I’ve always been a fan of the sport since I was very young. So I think that a crossover would be, would be awesome. And I would love to be, you know, a champion in amateur wrestling and MMA and in the WWE.”

Fight prediction & message for UFC fans in India

“My fight prediction is that I’m going to bring it the whole time, a hundred percent. My effort will be at a hundred percent. And just thank you to all the fight fans in India. I appreciate your support and yeah, tune in this Saturday. It’s going to be a fun one.”

Watch the UFC Fight Night – Sandhagen vs. Figueiredo on 4th May 2025 at 7:30 AM IST live on Sony Sports Ten 1 SD & HD, Sony Sports Ten 3 SD & HD (Hindi), Sony Sports Ten 4 SD & HD (Tamil & Telugu).

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