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Bo Nickal opens up about 'eye-opening' first UFC loss: 'More than being overconfident, it was being naive'

Bo Nickal isn't shying away from the first loss of his professional career at UFC Des Moines.

A previously unbeaten and much-hyped middleweight prospect, Nickal entered Saturday's fight against Reinier de Ridder as a big betting favorite, however the former ONE Championship two-division king had other plans, pummeling Nickal's body with nasty clinch strikes to deliver a shocking second-round knockout.

Nickal spoke publicly for the first time since his loss on Tuesday's edition of "The Ariel Helwani Show."

"More than anything, I just appreciate the love and support I'm getting from a ton of people," he said. "It's been really interesting. Something that I've noticed is the same people that are texting me after the wins are still texting me after this loss, and that makes me feel really good because I feel like I have a lot of really amazing people in my life, and I think I surrounded myself with the right people.

"I've heard so many stories of fighters who pretty much just get abandoned, in a way, after they lose a fight — and for me, again, I got hundreds of messages post-fight, and it's the same exact people that are texting me post-fight after I've won. So that's something I'm really appreciative of."

Regarding prospects, Nickal has been right up there as one of the most ballyhooed ever. A three-time NCAA Division I national champion wrestler, Nickal faced virtually no adversity in his first six bouts under the UFC umbrella, with his toughest test likely coming by merely having to fight through solid defense and submission attempts from Cody Brundage before he finding a rear-naked choke win at UFC 300.

Nickal, 29, entered the UFC orbit with only one win under his belt, so he was arguably on a fast track as soon as his MMA career began. Knowing that, Nickal is glad to have a moment like Saturday's come when it did.

"I don't really feel that the goal or myself or anything has changed," Nickal said. "It's unfortunate to have to experience that because I hate losing, but I think that even now, having gone through many, many losses in the past, and feeling like those were some of the biggest catalyzing moments in my life and my career, I'm already very grateful for it.

"I think that this is nothing but a learning opportunity, and experience that I think will just help me grow and improve and get better.

"It's like, alright, I go to the UFC at 3-0, and the message has kind of been like, 'Hey, this is going really fast. Maybe we just slow down,'" Nickal continued. "So it's not like this was the first time that's been said to me, but of course, right? I think it's pretty clear that things are moving quick, but you play the cards that you're dealt, and I feel like it's a good lesson for me."

De Ridder looked to be the most challenging on-paper obstacle for Nickal yet, and that obviously proved true. The former double-champ in Asia is as good as it gets in the 185-pound division, with strong submission grappling and an offensive ability to take virtually anyone down. In addition, de Ridder is naturally large for the division, standing 6-foot-4 and previously fighting as heavy as 225 pounds.

Despite the matchup, Nickal's confidence hadn't wavered ahead of his highest-ranked opportunity.

"I felt super confident going into the fight," he said. "I think that, in my mind, prior to, I did everything that I needed to do to prepare to win the fight. I felt great. I think that now, having looked back and gone through that, I wasn't as prepared as I thought. And there were a lot of things that I could have done better prior to, and a lot of things I could have focused on and done differently. That's great. That's something that I can look at, and I can take from that experience and change moving forward. So I think feeling that I was prepared as I could have been, and then realizing I really wasn't, is a good thing for me.

"It's tough to be able to predict everything or try to assume what's going to happen in a fight because I just don't have years and years and years under my belt, of reps and feeling different styles and people trying to do different things to me. So when I look at that fight and some of the things that kind of were his biggest, I guess, positives of the fight on his side, those were things I really wasn't prepared for. So now it's like, alright, that's eye-opening. I realize there was certain situations where I was vulnerable and certain weaknesses that I had in my game that, now those have been exposed. Now I get to work on them, which is a good thing."

One of Nickal's biggest attributes to start his MMA career has been his confidence. He's had no qualms predicting how hypothetical future matchups against top middleweights might go.

That prompted questions of whether Nickal was overlooking his opponents thanks to his fast-track trajectory. But that's not something he'll admit to, as Nickal knew "RDR" wouldn't be easy to overcome.

"I don't feel that I looked at 'RDR' as somebody I was going to blow through," Nickal said. "I looked at that as a really big test and really big challenge. Of course, I'm confident. I think nobody in my situation or in this sport is — we're all confident guys, so I think that knowing the danger of the fight going in, I felt like there was a lot of opportunity and chances for me to have weaknesses in my game exposed, and that's exactly what happened.

"I wasn't really afraid of that going in. I think that more than being overconfident, it was being naive. Being in certain situations and not realizing that I'm in danger. It just comes with experience — so again, I had an experience this past weekend that I'm going to be really, really grateful for in the long run, and he fought his fight, and I fought his fight too. So that's something that, moving forward in the future, I'm going to know not to do. Overall, I'm grateful for the lesson."

The bout's finishing sequence, in particular, was a nasty one. De Ridder utilized his size and clinch control heavily from the fight's start, chipping away at Nickal with tight punches, both up high and to the body. Ultimately, it was the knees de Ridder continuously launched into Nickal's torso that folded him for good.

"It's not fun," Nickal said of the knockout. "It just kind of shuts your whole body down, right? It wasn't really that last sequence that did it. It was more so the accumulation of he hit me in the body a lot in that first round, and I don't think I really showed it too much, but in the clinch, landed knees, landed punches. There was an accumulation of damage there, and the last one was just the nail in the coffin. So that's something that I think, again, I hate to keep saying the same thing, but it's a great lesson for me."

Reactions throughout the MMA community since the loss have been unsurprising, with fans lambasting Nickal for the comments he confidently made as he rose through the UFC ranks — only to lose devastatingly. Regardless, Nickal doesn't regret any of his words and won't let the noise affect him.

More than anything else, Nickal simply wants to correct his mistakes and prove to himself that he still has a bright future. Ideally, that will mean a quick return, with hopes of fighting twice more in 2025.

"That comes with the territory," he said. "This has happened many times over, so that's not a surprise to me. It's part of the job, so I think I've said a lot of things in the past that have brought a lot of emotions out of people for whatever reason, and that's totally fine. For me, the focus is continue to improve and get better at fighting. It really just makes me even more grateful for the people that do support me.

"How often is it that guys lose a fight, or an undefeated prospect loses a fight, and everybody, all the sudden, is like, 'This guy is trash, he's garbage, he got fraud checked.' That's just the way the world works. That's the way this type of business works. So it's not a surprise for me, but it's definitely motivation. It's fuel for the fire, and as soon as that fight ended, even just traveling back to our Airbnb with my coaches, all I wanted to do was get back into training and get back to improving and getting better.

"I do this because I love it, and it's a big challenge," Nickal added. "It's very intense, and there's a lot of pressure, but that's fun for me. I want to live my life that way, and when things go well, I get the reward. When things don't go well, like this past weekend, then I get the consequences of that as well, and that's the life."

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