Bo Nickal dominates first professional MMA fight

Former Penn State great Bo Nickal obliterates opponent in professional MMA debut

Nittany Lion fans have seen Bo Nickal do just about everything a human could possibly do on the Resilite in both collegiate wrestling and on the international wrestling stage. But I highly doubt they’ve seen anything like this from him before.

On Friday night, Nickal took to the octagon to square off against John Noland in Jorge Masvidal’s iKON FC 3. Both fighters were making their professional MMA debut and both fighters were hoping to get their professional careers started on the right foot.

Which is exactly what happened, and the results weren’t pretty for Nickal’s opponent.

https://twitter.com/OnwardState/status/1532917970053349376

Less than one minute into his professional debut, Bo Nickal connected on a left hook and then a flurry of combos to Noland’s face. A split second later, Nickal’s opponent was laying on the mat unconscious and Bo hopped onto the side of the ring to bask in the glory of his first win.

At this point, I think most people in the world know how good Bo Nickal is with his grappling, groundwork, leverage in tight spaces, and submissions. But “Holy striking ability, Batman!”. I severely doubt many of the Nittany Lion faithful who tuned in Friday night were anticipating the quickness and power Nickal put on full display with his fists.

Look, was John Noland the best test for Nickal in his professional debut? No. Far from it.

But for him to make waves in the sport of MMA, then he did the smart thing and is easing his way into the sport*. And the results from last night prove Bo Nickal has a real shot to do just this.

* – if this is even possible in MMA