Chael Sonnen still wants to see Bo Nickal fight Khamzat Chimaev, but 'we are not there'
Chimaev (15-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) claimed the middleweight title with a dominant grappling display over Dricus Du Plessis in Saturday's UFC 319 headliner at United Center in Chicago. Many are wondering who can stop Chimaev, and Sonnen thinks Nickal's wrestling background as a three-time NCAA Division I champion could make it an interesting fight.
Nickal (7-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) is coming off his first-career loss when he was finished by Reinier de Ridder at UFC on ESPN 67. Sonnen clarified he does not mean Nickal has earned that opportunity now, but that doesn't mean he doesn't hope to see the fight someday.
"I love the idea of Caio (Borralho) getting that opportunity," Sonnen said on "Good Guy/Bad Guy" with Daniel Cormier. "I don't want to continue down my usual road of dismissing (Nassourdine) Imavov. When Imavov got over on Izzy, he got a brand new look from me. But if you made me just throw one name at you, I mean, listen, not for nothing, I really want to see him go with Bo Nickal. That's just personally. I understand that we are not there. I like that idea."
Sonnen went onto give his pick for Chimaev's current biggest threat.
"I'm not dismissive to 'Fluffy' Hernandez, but the one that could offer the biggest threat from what we've seen in the past, and that's going to be De Ridder," Sonnen said. "One thing that Chimaev, and one of the reasons his fight with Gilbert Burns was so fun and so unusual, is he respected Gilbert's ground game so much that he wasn't in a huge hurry to get him there like he was Saturday against Dricus. I only offer you that De Ridder's ground game is respected in the same regard. He's a tremendous jiu-jitsu player, but specifically from the bottom. So, I like RDR right now."
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