Bo Nickal remained undefeated when he faced Cody Brundage on Saturday, April 13 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The all-American middleweight bout kicked off UFC 300: Pereira vs Hill live on pay-per-view.
The Rifle, Colorado native forced his opponent to tap via rear-naked choke. Referee Chris Tognoni stopped the fight at 3 minutes and 38 seconds into the second round. All of his previous outings the former freestyle wrestler won inside the first five minutes.
“I’m a little bit embarrassed about this performance, just because I expected to go out there and completely dominate and shut this guy out, and I gave him a little bit too many opportunities,” Bo Nickal said in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, when asked about giving himself two thumbs down. “But at the same time I feel really grateful, because I did get to get past the first round, which in mind is now that I’m a few seconds removed kind of ideal, because I was able to have that experience under my belt now.”
“I think he was just more confident. He came out to fight, which is great and for me it’s a good learning experience. Now I know [when] a guy is confident, I’ll just be a little bit more tactical and not get into positions that I’m vulnerable.”
With the victory by submission, Bo Nickal improved to 6-0. In his next fight the 28-year-old wants to face a “better guy”.
“I got a long career ahead of me. I want to fight a better guy. That’s the thing for me. Every single fight, I’m going to fight better and better guys. I think people forget, I’m like 5 and 0, it’s now 6 and 0, and most of guys I’m fighting have 15, 20 fights. So, I think by the time I’m 10, 12 and 0, I’ll be fighting for the belt. So just keep that in your mind, next time I fight a guy, if he is not the number one guy or something… I got six fights, so relax.”
“Anthony Hernandez is the guy I could fight. [Roman] Kopylov, they just had a good fight. Take anybody in the division, I’m coming for you guys. If you are lucky enough to get the call to fight me, just be grateful and sign that contract.”
Cody Brundage dropped to 10-6. The 29-year-old native of Chapin, South Carolina got his two-fight winning streak snapped.
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