A guide to Bo Nickal's unorthodox wrestling

 Bo Nickal is the best wrestler to grace the UFC octagon since recently retired professional boxer Ben Askren. Nickal is one of the most accomplished collegiate wrestlers you can find in the world of mma, with his stint on the freestyle scene being equally as impressive, winning the U23 world championships. Much like wrestling, Bo Nickal has shown a lot of talent in mma, showcasing his newfound striking and some slick submission skills on the contender series. While anyone can see that he can wrestle, Nickal’s success is a product of his creativity, being able to bend principles often considered fundamental and use them to his advantage. In every aspect of wrestling he does things that would make any highschool wrestling coach cringe, but with his athleticism, along with a lot of creativity, he is able to pull off some really impressive moves.

Inside position is a concept that many high level grapplers, in all types of grappling, consider incredibly important. Getting some kind of inside position, such as an underhook or a post inside of the bicep, opens up direct pathways to many attacks such as a shot to the legs, while also blocking those same pathways for the opponent. Bo Nickal forgoes this concept almost completely in his hand fighting, normally choosing to relinquish inside control entirely in favour of what is known as an overtie, where you rest your arm over your opponent’s already established collar tie. Nickal consistently giving his opponent inside position in the form of a collar tie is risky but is a major part of his game, coaxing his opponent into offensive exchanges that he has confidence enough in himself to win. With the overtie he is able to hang over his opponent and wear them down, the constant downward pressure tempting them into taking an unadvised shot to the legs. With his slide by’s and snapdowns off the overtie Nickal is able to set up leg attacks and ankle picks, his willingness to risk his opponent scoring opening up opportunities for him to score himself. His opportunistic wrestling can be viewed in his knee picks takedowns. Nickal’s knee picks are almost always reactionary, immediately transitioned to the second he gets the underhook, often off an opponent’s failed takedown. This means that Nickal rarely has what is considered the “correct” positioning on his knee pick, usually missing head position and/or inside knee position, making them difficult to finish. While they are low percentage in themselves, they allow him to get back on offence after an opponent’s takedown attempt and while they rarely end up in a score, Nickal has ben shown to use them to chain wrestle into double legs. Nickal’s own shots are unorthodox, often choosing to shoot for the back leg. While this is usually heavily discouraged, stretching out your shot and giving your opponent significantly more time to react, it is unlikely that the defending wrestler will expect you to shoot for your back leg. Nickal will shoot for a high crotch on the back leg, taking a grip high up the leg so as not to lengthen out the shot too much when he shoots, using the grip to transition to a double leg finish. Nickal has found success at the highest levels breaking rules seen to many as fundamental, throwing elite athletes into chaotic and unorthodox situations that they are not usually used to, breaking the games of top competitors by throwing in techniques and tactics that they are just not used to.

Nickal was notorious in his collegiate career for his pinning abilities. Nickal’s entertainment value comes from the fact that he can be flat on his back and the next moment on top scoring back points. Nickal’s long frame makes him a cradle machine, relentlessly hunting for them during his riding sequences. The effectiveness of the cradle comes from the fact that if your opponent has their knee and head remotely close to each other there is a good chance that there is an opportunity for a cradle, which in the context of a wrestling match is often a game ending move. Nickal will look for cradles in transition to the back from a front headlock when the opponent turns into him, he will look for cradles when he’s riding, he will even look for cradles when his opponent is on a single leg. If his opponent attempts to crunch their body in the opposite direction in a near side cradle he will simply switch sides to the newly available far side cradle. The prospect of a pinning move that can come from anywhere makes Nickal’s top game far more dangerous. Nickal will even take his weight off of the bottom wrestler and let him up, looking for his cradles and other pinning moves such as the “cow catcher”. While riding time is often a major focus for most collegiate wrestler’s strategies, Nickal often wrestles like it doesn’t exist, almost as if he is confident that the match will not be close enough for it to matter. Nickal’s hyper aggressive and near reckless top position strategy might not work for all wrestlers, but it has allowed him to not only win a lot of matches, but also build a pretty impressive highlight reel.

“Just stand up” has become a meme that is widespread across combat sports, even to those who don’t practice mma. The stand up is an extremely important part of collegiate wrestling, separating it from a lot of other wrestling styles where getting back up after being taken down is far less prevalent. The number one way to get up in collegiate wrestling is to control the hands and build up. Bo Nickal rarely finds himself on bottom, unless its off a flying cement mixer attempt, but in the rarer cases he does end up having to get back to his feet he’s usually disinterested in fighting hands. While controlling the hands is still extremely high percentage, Nickal focuses more primarily on the hip connection of his opponent. Nickal will place both of his hands on his opponent’s hips and elevate, the disconnection of his hips from the opponent’s making it very difficult for him to get mat returned. By using the quad pod or simply leaping to his feet Nickal is able to “just stand up”, the hip tracking preventing the top wrestler from punishing any big movements. If the opponent keeps all their weight over him, Nickal will simply twerk them off in what is sometimes called the “bronco”. The downside to not fighting the hands as you stand up is that your opponent still keeps a body lock. The hip posts alleviate this downside because it extends the body lock, allowing Nickal to dig an underhook (which he can then move into a knee pick as previously mentioned). Even if he does get mat returned off the body lock, Nickal has been shown to be able to time the granby roll off the mat return, using the momentum as he gets thrown back to the mat to roll away from his opponent. By abandoning one of he most effective strategies in bottom wrestling in fighting the hands Nickal creates a system just as effective but one which his adversary is likely a lot less familiar with.

Wrestling is one of the oldest sports known to man, being in every Olympics from ancient Greece to Paris 2024. For thousands of years men have stripped down and tries to pin each other on the ground. The beauty in wrestling is that, despite the longevity of the sport,  there are a plethora of styles you can see at the highest level, Nickal just being one of hundreds of different styles. Nickal breaks rules seen by many coaches as gospel, but builds his style around it to great effect. People say it is important to master the fundamentals before you break them and this is true. If you know the downsides to breaking convention you can learn to mitigate the consequences for doing so, and go on to reap the benefits that fundamentals hold back. Nickal obviously adheres to most of the fundamental principles of wrestling, he keeps in a good stance, protects his legs and makes sure to set up his shots, but it is his tweaking of “rules” that have allowed him, as an already excellent wrestler, to excel.