You can’t possibly compare the wrestling credentials nor evidence of proficiency in MMA wrestling between Bo and Justin. That said, it’ll end up a striking match, because both are probably good enough to not be put on their back by the other.
These discussions happen often, but it’s usually moot because you don’t have to be the better wrestler to not be taken down, just have to be good enough in relation to your oponent.
Bo has had THREE MMA fights in total. Not even one yet in the UFC.
He’s obviously an elite athlete. And offensively he’s shown some well-roundedness, but he also hasn’t even taken a punch yet.
At this point, claiming he could beat someone who’s much more tested is nothing more than pure speculation.
Bo knows.
I also would like to point out the difference in style between American wrestlers and Russian wrestlers (stereotypical, at least).
At the world level, it can be said that Americans want to go up and down, and Russians (and to an even larger degree, Iranians these days) want to go left and right.
to beat a dead horse, I’m talking in generalities here, so of COURSE there are a million exceptions, but that said…
At the world level in freestyle, Americans have adopted the John Smith legacy, where attacking below the knee is paired with a heavy snapdown/front head lock game, and punishing forward pressure. That’s essentially Kyle Snyder’s entire game. David Taylor does a lot of the same stuff. Kyle Dake lives on his knees.
Iranians these days like to get to an underhook and create an angle. From that they’ll either look to get hip to hip and essentially do no-gi Judo, or they pressure to the edge and get pushout points (the pushout point is the single worst rule in Freestyle wrestling right now. It’s become in-shape sumo.)
Russians historically like the 2 on 1 arm tie (you may know it as the russian tie), they tend to be more balanced in terms of offense vs defense (Americans by and large tend to be more offensively aggressively), and their stance tends to be higher to facilitate big 4/5 point throws.
The American stance tends to be quite a bit lower than a European stance, to facilitate that snapdown/ankle pick/low single game.
The point is, Bo doesn’t wrestle like a typical American. Like, yes, of course he can attack an ankle, but he doesn’t look for the ULTRA heavy collar tie/pressure. He tends to wrestler from a bit further outside (Burroughs does too, but he’s hunting a double), and his stance tends to be a big more straight legged, and coming over the top with his right hand, almost like an overhand right.
Where Bo made his living on the mat was as a scrambler. He scrambles like a 133 (if you watched Askrens MMA before he got old, it’s not entire dis-similar).
This is all a long-winded way to say we really haven’t seen a guy like Bo in MMA, and so to do the whole “russian wrestlers vs american wrestlers” thing will lead people to make bad assumptions about Nickal if they haven’t watched him wrestle a ton.
The idea that he’s going to come out in MMA and be spamming blast doubles, and if you can sprawl him out, he’ll end up stuck on bottom grabbing for a leg seems pretty silly, to me.
For an interesting idea of how his wrestling might translate, watch the turn he uses right here to win one of his national titles.
Bo Nickal vs. Myles Martin: 2018 NCAA wrestling championships (184 lb.) - YouTube (2:40 of the video, incase the time-stamping doesn’t work)
It’s basically the EXACT same turn he uses to take mount and attack the guillotine in his last MMA fight:
Bo Nickal beats Donovan Beard in under a minute 👀 | ESPN MMA - YouTube (7 seconds in in case time-stamping doesn’t work)
I’ll go with Khamzat.
In MMA? Surely Khamzat?!
