NEW YORK – Bo Nickal knew everyone would revel in his demotion to the UFC 322 prelims.
Many were outraged when Nickal’s fight against Rodolfo Vieira on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York (pay-per-view, ESPNews/Disney+/FX, ESPN+) served as the pay-per-view opener, which would have marked his sixth straight main card slot.
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However, Nickal (7-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) vs. Vieira (11-3 MMA, 6-3 UFC) was recently bumped down, meaning the standout wrestler will compete on the prelims for the first time in his UFC career.
“I made a pretty arrogant comment on Ariel Helwani the first time I went on there that, of course, I would be on the main card,” Nickal told reporters at UFC 322 media day. “A lot of people have given me a lot of flack for that. Finally, your guy’s wishes were fulfilled. I’ll be headlining the prelims. Congratulations, everybody.”
Nickal has been in the spotlight from the first day he stepped into an MMA cage. Expectations were high, but it was his confidence that rubbed many people the wrong way. Now that he’s suffered his first-career loss to Reinier de Ridder in May, the 29-year-old has been hearing it from plenty of fans, pundits and fellow fighters – but he’s grown accustomed to it.
“I think any time there’s criticism, you can take it personally and let it be a hit to your ego, or you can look at it and analyze it and try to be unbiased,” Nickal said. “I feel like a lot of the stuff, there’s some truth to it. You can maybe look at it from that way or perceive it that way and maybe there is a little truth there, but I feel like it’s really lacking the whole picture. At the end of the day, I’m going to live my life the way I want to live my life.
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“So, nobody’s going to tell me what to do or how to do it. I’m going to make those decisions and do what I think is best for me personally. But that being said, I think that I don’t really approach the critics and the observation of what they’re saying with malice or I feel like these people are attacking me, like it’s me against them. It’s more just like try to observe it in an unbiased way and maybe there is some truth to that.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Back to UFC 322 prelims: ‘Congratulations, everybody,’ Bo Nickal says
