After winning for a 2nd time on Dana White’s Contender series and getting a contract, Bo Nickal has his first UFC fight set already.
Per the UFC and reported by Brett Okamoto. At UFC 282 it’ll be Bo Nickal’s UFC debut against Jamie Pickett in the middleweight division.
Nickal, 28, trucked CFFC champion Donovan Beard en route to a 52-second, UFC contract-earning submission Tuesday at Dana White’s Contender Series. The win moved him to 3-0 in his pro MMA career with three quick, first-round finishes. He has yet to absorb a strike.
Meanwhile, Pickett enters the fight on a two-fight skid. Following a two-fight winning streak with victories over Laureano Staropoli and Joseph Holmes, Pickett was finished in back-to-back fights against Kyle Daukaus and Denis Tiuliulin.
Spotlighted long before his MMA career kicked off, Nickal was a three-time Division-I national champion and three-time Big Ten conference champion for Penn State. He won a national championship and an under-23 world championship, both in 2019 in the 92kg (202.8-pound) weight class. He finished college with a 120-3 record, including a combined 61-0 record in his junior and senior years.
In 2019, Nickal earned the 2019 Dan Hodge Trophy, an accolade awarded to the nation’s best wrestler. He also twice won the Schalles Award, an honor given to the nation’s best pinner. In addition, in 2019 he was named Big Ten Athlete of the Year. Nickal is a blue belt in jiu-jitsu and trains at American Top Team in South Florida.
