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Amateur wrestling standout Bo Nickal is one of the hottest prospects in MMA right now, so it was surprising when Dana White didn't sign him off after a dominating first-round win on the contender series. That may be because Nickal has made it clear he wants to fight in the UFC and nowhere else.
In a new episode of The MMA Hour, Nickal was asked whether he had received offers from other fight promotions. He replied:
"People have been wanting to sign me for since I announced I was going into MMA. And after I had a couple amateur fights, more organizations were reaching out. And I had serious talks with a few, but it's always been in my heart that I need to compete in the UFC and that's obviously if you want to be the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world, that's where you need to compete. So for me it was almost formalities. I had to have the conversations with other organizations but I knew where I wanted to go, I knew where my heart was."
"We talked. I felt like it would have been dumb for me to not at least engage in conversations. So we had conversations and they were throwing big numbers out there, a lot of these promotions. But I don't fight for money, at the end of the day if I wanted to make money I would have been a finance major in college and I would be running a Fortune 500 company or something. So I'm fighting because I love it, this is what I'm passionate about, and that's it."
Nickal is set to fight again on the September 27 season finale of Dana White's Contender Series. Barring a complete disaster, it's expected that the three-time NCAA Division I champion will be signed to the UFC.
Watch Bo Nickal discuss his second MMA win on Dana White's Contender Series below:
Bo Nickal believes it's a good bet he'll be a UFC champion by the end of 2024
After winning his first Dana White's Contender Series fight in just over a minute, Bo Nickal blasted the sportsbook community for giving him -3000 odds to win, saying he expected -10,000 in the future. On Twitter, he continued to insist that even -3000 bets were "free money."
However, if bettors were looking for a better line, how about 'Bo Nickal wins UFC gold before the end of 2024' at -1000?
Nickal's hype isn't just about his impeccable amateur wrestling credentials. Teammates from his gym at the American Kickboxing Academy like Jorge Masvidal claim that Nickal also has dynamite in his hands. He proved that in his first professional MMA fight by knocking out his opponent just 33 seconds into their fight.
Whether he'll be able to do that at UFC-level remains to be seen, but if he can't, he'll still be able to take the fight to the ground at will.
Fans can also check out the video below on various martial arts styles:
