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Iowa wrestling trolls Bo Nickal following UFC loss to Reinier De Ridder

IMG_6598by: Nick Kosko05/21/25nickkosko59
USATSI_26088925 (1)
Reese Strickland-Imagn Images

Bo Nickal had to take a lot of criticism right on the chin following his first MMA loss, including from Iowa. The former Penn State wrestler and three-time NCAA champion regularly trolled Iowa, and well, owned Iowa while in college.

But, following a loss to top 15 welterweight contender Reinier De Ridder, Iowa had the last laugh. De Ridder already sported an Iowa shirt ahead of his fight against Nickal and the Hawkeyes decided to send the winner a care package.

Nickal lost his first career fight via TKO due to knees in the second round back on May 3, ironically in Des Moines (Iowa). De Ridder, a former two-division champion in ONE, is now 20-2 overall and 3-0 in the UFC, is inching closer to title contention and Iowa certainly believes in him. You can see the troll, and gear care package, below.

“Yeah I expect it,” De Ridder said to Full Send MMA after his win if he expects a care package from Iowa. “I’ll leave my address afterwards here.”

Sure enough, Iowa sent him shirts and a hat featuring the Iowa wrestling logo and a shirt repping the Hawkeye Wrestling Club, the in-house RTC housing senior level athletes in pursuit of the Olympics.

Nickal and De Ridder were in the middle of several grappling exchanges in the first round and into the second. One even included Nickal landing a takedown but Ridder’s grappling experience was on display.

Ridder solidified a reversal and controlled Nickal from the top position before setting up for the TKO in the second round. He would catch Nickal with several knees to the body before landing the finishing blow.

Nickal’s MMA record fell to 7-1 overall and he is now 4-1 in the UFC. Ridder came into the fight ranked No. 13 at middleweight, giving the former Nittany Lion his first ranked opponent.

“My initial reaction was like, I want to go right away. Like, let’s go, you know, get me back in there,” Nickal said on his podcast, Nickals and Dimes, following his loss. “Which is just the competitor in me, right? So I have to balance that with being smart and strategic and further figuring out what’s actually best. We all saw this last fight, and you could tell, like, those guys are definitely a size up relative to me. They’re quite a bit bigger, and it’s just physics and bio mechanics at that point … I don’t think that’s why I lost the fight, but I think that’ll do me some good to put on some size. 

“So bulk up season, we’re going back on the bulk. Gonna get a few extra lifts in, get big and then, yeah, other than that, like, I just want to keep getting better at fighting. And I think there’s a lot of different ways that I could do that, a lot of different things, people that I could go to to improve. And my natural instinct is to get back in there right away. But I don’t know, we’ll see I’m focused on the bulk up and I’m definitely gonna get another fight by the end of the year, like, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll fight again in 2025.”