Bo Nickal got run over by a Reinier, which is par for the UFC course in 2025
Bo Nickal lost his unbeaten record and at least some of his prospect hype, thanks to some punishing knees by Reinier de Ridder in the co-main event of Saturday's UFC Fight Night in Des Moines, Iowa. (Reese Strickland-Imagn Images)
Back in January, the blue-chip prospect Payton Talbott made the walk as a 10-to-1 favorite against Raoni Barcelos at UFC 311 and then got dominated for three rounds. That hurt, but not nearly as bad as the kicks he received on social media after the loss. Playing along, he posted afterward that he was sentencing himself to Dagestan to learn to wrestle.
Last week, Carlos Prates suffered something similar. He was 5-0 in the UFC with five knockouts. He was a big reason the Fighting Nerds were being celebrated as a gang of four-eyed marauders, and yet he got smoked by Ian Garry in the barbecue capital of Kansas City. Garry even pretended to tamp out a cigarette after he got his hand raised.
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Perhaps it's always been the case, but in 2025 it's definitely a thing — the UFC has come to stand for the Ultimate Fraud Check. There's a glee that accompanies watching a dutifully hyped prospect get his arse handed to him, especially from those who worship at the altar of chaos.
It happened again on Saturday night at the UFC's Fight Night in Des Moines, Iowa.
This time it was the undefeated former collegiate wrestler Bo Nickal who got the treatment. Nickal was a -300 favorite to beat the Dutchman Reinier de Ridder, and therefore a featured chalk line on level-headed parlays. As a three-time national champion out of Penn State, Nickal was being imagined into fights with such names as Khamzat Chimaev from the time he emerged from the Contender Series, which of course couldn't help but rub some people the wrong way.
So when he lost to de Ridder, the social media chorus swelled. Words like 'exposed' were getting tossed around by those who knew, which is everyone in the habit of predicting outcomes retrospectively. A wicked knee to the body from de Ridder did the trick, yet that was only the end sequence. Before then de Ridder showed that he wouldn't take in-cage dictation from anybody, even a brass-tacks wrestler with decades of pedigree.
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De Ridder wasn't about to be bullied, and in fact turned the tables on Nickal. He was tenderizing Bo's insides with the knees to the body. It was a revelation. It's that kind of thing that gives the UFC its juice, this brand of truth-telling. The idea that there's always an opponent coming to snatch that zero. The understanding that hype is carefully built just so it can be imploded on live TV.
And let's face it, hype is traditionally the name of the fight game, as generating public interest converts nicely into American dollars. That's where Bo was. Right on the cusp. He was the marquee name in the cornfield because he looked inevitable.
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There was talk of him headlining his next fight at the Bryce Jordan Center in Happy Valley, tailor-made for an All-American homecoming. Nickal had finished the first five opponents he faced in the UFC, and easily handled Paul Craig in his last fight, even if Craig survived to hear the scorecards.
Nickal's loss to de Ridder is the first of his professional career, and came in yet another match-up in which Nickal was the heavy favorite. (Reese Strickland-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
Were his opponents handpicked? You're damn right they were! Nobody was trying to throw Paddy Pimblett to the wolves, and look where he is now, on the verge of contendership. Which is another way of saying Paddy's still 'ripe for exposure,' to a certain way of thinking.
No, in 2025 watching hype get smashed has become a delicacy on Saturday nights. When Umar Nurmagomedov fell against Merab Dvalishvili, the middle fingers couldn't get out of their clinched fists fast enough.
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Perhaps it's an undying need to see people get humbled. Nickal himself helped fuel things by saying that even as a -1600 favorite in his early fights that it was value, which is the right mindset for a guy who knows nothing but winning. Did he say he could hang with Chimaev? He did, he did. But to see him get handled the way he did Saturday night, you'd think his entire career was nothing more than a house of cards.
'If one's standup and grappling is superior, the wrestling pedigree merely allows their opponent to decide where they will lose,' Al Iaquinta pointed out on X afterward. A fairly even-keel take, even if it wasn't the case when he fought Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Another take? BO NICKAL FRAUD CHECKED, in all caps.
Maybe so. You'd have to think that as a longtime competitor Nickal will use the loss as motivation to come back stronger. Losses don't sit well with fighters who've spent their whole lives staying in control. Bo's the latest to take an L on his way to Big Things, and he won't be the last. The glee that follows?
Well, let's just say that never has comeuppance been so exposed.
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