Bo Nickal remained undefeated at UFC 309 and earned his biggest win to date but these stats alone do not tell the full story of his performance at Madison Square Garden. The undefeated 185-pounder faced off with Scotland’s Paul Craig in a fight that many believed would be Nickal’s toughest test to date.
The biggest talking point heading into this match-up was whether the wrestling specialist would attempt to play to his strengths against Scotland’s Craig who is an incredibly dangerous submission artist. In the end, we didn’t get to find out how they would have matched up in this area because fight fans instead got a fairly uneventful striking match over three rounds which Nickal won without landing too many significant shots.
In a recent video on his YouTube channel in the aftermath of the UFC’s return to New York, Chael Sonnen voiced his frustrations about the fight and Nickal’s approach in particular. He believes that someone must have told the 28-year old to stay clear of Craig’s grappling and though he ended up winning the striking battle and therefore the fight, Sonnen took a lot of issue with this considering his wrestling credentials.
“My problem with it and my gripe is that you have a four-time world champion… doesn’t do one damn bit of wrestling because somebody got a hold of him. One of his trainers or his training partners sat him down and said, ‘You’re not ready to go to the ground with the guy.’ Well how the F would we know? How in the F we would know that now?”
Sonnen went on to reference Georges St-Pierre and how he would game plan for opponents in comparison. He said that the former welterweight and middleweight champion would look at his three best skill sets and rank them in order to strategize how he would approach the fight and what his back-up plans would be.
“The Bad Guy” believes that Nickal gave Craig too much respect by not sticking to what he does best, stating that this isn’t something that the middleweight prospect did when he faced elite wrestlers so would he start doing it now.
“That is nothing that Bo has ever done. He didn’t show Gabe Dean that respect, he didn’t show Miles Martin that respect, he did not show David Taylor that respect and he refuses to take down, a four-time world champion refuses to use one bit of wrestling against a guy that’s never had a wrestling match. That is because of somebody in his trusted inner circle.”