Brendan Schaub says Bo Nickal striking skills 'never happening,' just focus on grappling

USA Today

07-05-2025

Brendan Schaub says Bo Nickal striking skills 'never happening,' just focus on grappling
Brendan Schaub believes Bo Nickal should solely focus on his grappling after suffering his first-career loss.
Nickal (7-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) was finished by Reinier de Ridder body shots in Saturday's UFC on ESPN 67 co-main event at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa. De Ridder was able to fend off Nickal's grappling and finish him on the feet in Round 2. With Nickal's elite wrestling background, Schaub thinks the American Top Team fighter is focusing on the wrong things.
"There aren't enough hours in the day for where Bo's striking is about to get to an elite level. There's not," Schaub said on his YouTube channel. "Bo is an elite athlete, but that's how hard striking is. Striking in MMA takes a long, long time to get comfortable and to execute a game plan, and he's just not there. It doesn't matter who his coaches are, it's never happening. Never happening."
Nickal opted to stand and strike with Paul Craig for three rounds at UFC 309, a win that led to plenty of criticism from pundits and fans alike. Schaub wants to see Nickal's team reconstruct his game plans moving forward.
"So today, they should go, 'Bo, if you're going to win and have a career in the UFC, you have got to absolutely dominate. So what are we going to work on? Your wrestling, your ground-and-pound, and submissions. F*ck your striking. We're going to do just enough so you don't look like a moron,'" Schaub said. "You've got to become that dominant wrestler like you were at Penn State. But if they tell me, 'Schaub, take it easy, his striking is really good in the gym, we're going to focus on striking, forget about wrestling,' I'll tell you he won't last long.
"If his whole mentality doesn't change and goes, 'OK, I've got to become the Khabib of 185 and absolutely break everybody with my grappling, f*ck striking' ... If his team wants him to last and be a contender, we've got to focus on his grappling and wrestling. That's where he's an outlier. When he's forced to strike – you guys know I love Bo, (but) his striking, I've seen better guys on the regional level, on the Contender Series. It's just not there. That's OK. If this was a video game, his striking is a 1 at the UFC level, and his grappling is at 10. Why the f*ck are we trying to win with the 1?"