Bo Nickal fans are a little nervous ahead of UFC Des Moines, and that anxiety isn’t related to his co-main event opponent, Reinier de Ridder.
On Tuesday, Nickal shared a video on the scale that showed him weighing 222 pounds. He has to hit the 186-pound mark on Friday morning, meaning Nickal has a very short amount of time to shed a whopping 36 pounds if he wants to keep his entire fight purse and avoid pissing off the entire UFC fanbase.
Those numbers are a definite cause for concern, but Nickal revealed his weight gain is intentional. He wanted to bulk up as part of his long term plan for UFC success, which makes sense when the divisional champion is a gorilla like Dricus Du Plessis.
“A big part of my last camp these last few months has been to bulk up,” Nickal told MMA Fighting. “I felt like that’s something that I wanted to focus on was getting my weight a little higher and making sure that I’m a full-size middleweight. So coming in at the weight, it’s just part of the job for me. Bringing the weight down is something I’m used to … It was a little heavier than what I expected, and I was wearing a hoodie and stuff like that, so it was a little less than what we saw on the scale, but, yeah, I knew I had a lot of work to do at that moment, but it is again, part of the job.”
Nickal enters this bout with plenty of hype behind him. Already 4-0 inside the Octagon with just seven professional bouts total, the incredibly decorated collegiate wrestler has clearly been doing something right. Still, he admits this will be the biggest cut yet.
“It’s the biggest cut [for a fight] for sure,” Nickal continued. “I think that I’m always looking to adjust things and make sure that I’m, in each camp and each training cycle, improving and getting better, and I felt like the [extra] size is something that’s good for me.”
Nickal was asked for an updated number but opted not to respond.
It will be really interesting to see Nickal on the scale Friday. Nickal has never looked like the largest Middleweight, so added size could be needed. At the same time, agility and cardio are assets as well, and banking too much on a major cut could wreck his performance. Also, it’s simply hard to believe Nickal has put on THAT much weight since his last bout, a November 2024 decision victory over Paul Craig.
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This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
