Tim Tebow was a collegiate football phenomenon, wining a pair of BCS national titles, scoring championship MVP honors, and capturing the Heisman Trophy as an underclassman en route to breaking multiple passing and rushing records as a Florida Gator.
But after a hot start with the Denver Broncos, where Tebow was drafted in the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft, it all went downhill — fast. Tebow consistently underperformed and was eventually traded to the New York Jets in 2012 before getting released the following year.
Tebow bounced around the league for the next few years and eventually retired.
Like Tebow, UFC middleweight and accomplished wrestler Bo Nickal was also a standout collegiate athlete, becoming a three-time NCAA Division I National Champion and a three-time Big Ten Conference champion out of Penn State University.
Nickal, now 28, was also a two-time Schalles Award winner, captured the 2019 Dan Hodge Trophy and was named 2019 Big Ten Athlete of the Year before ending his remarkable run as a finalist at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials.
“I think the UFC knows he’s gonna be champ,” former heavyweight contender, Brendan Schaub, told a speechless Joe Rogan on the UFC commentator’s “Experience” podcast. “Let it clear up then we’re gonna release the hounds. He has it all. Check, check, check, check … checks all the boxes. He’s the Tim Tebow of (expletive) UFC.”
Nickal is currently 5-0 with five first-round finishes as a pro.
By Schaub’s logic, that means Nickal enjoyed his hot start and will now collapse, perhaps starting with his Cody Brundage fight at UFC 300. Nickal is expected to compete on the “Prelims” portion of the landmark event, set for April 13 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Schaub knows a thing or two about career implosions.
“Big Brown” played college football at the University of Colorado and kicked off his MMA career with seven straight wins, which includes his exhibition fights on Season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF). Unfortunately, Schaub was stopped by Roy Nelson in the live TUF finale and would lose four more times in UFC — three by way of brutal knockout — before hanging up the gloves in late 2014.
Schaub claims to be Tebow’s “very good friend,” insisting they “text and call each other all the time.”
It is not yet known where the ceiling is for Nickal, if he has one, because the promotion has yet to pair him with a ranked middleweight. Perhaps another fast finish as part of the UFC 300 fight card (see it here) will motivate matchmakers to increase the level of difficulty for his next fight.
Or maybe Nickal will lose to Brundage and give birth to “Mystic Schaub.”
Nickal should be fighting someone like Brad Tavares at 300