Fight Week: Bo Nickal Prepping For UFC Debut At UFC 285

If you woke up this week and smelled an impending butt-whoopin’ in the air, that would make a lot of sense because the “Best Fighter In The World” — Bo Nickal — is making his official UFC debut this weekend at UFC 285.

Screenshot via Wikipedia

As you can see above, Nickal will be a part of the “main card” portion of the event, meaning he’ll be on pay-per-view as opposed to ESPNews/ESPN+ “free” portion of the card. Fortunately, the UFC makes it affordable to watch its pay-per-views at only $79.99 per event. And let me be clear: the only way to watch is if you pay for it. There are absolutely no streams that you can find on the worldwide web for free. Nope, no sir.

Nickal’s debut comes after two fights in the summer on Dana White’s Contender Series, where he went 2-0 and spent a total of one minute and 54 seconds in the cage, winning both fights via submissions.

Now, he’ll take on the 34-year-old Jamie Pickett whose UFC career has been a bit up and down. Like Nickal, he got his UFC start on Dana White’s Contender Series. But unlike Nickal, Pickett struggled, losing his first two fights to Charles Byrd (went onto go 1-3 in the UFC) and Punahele Soriano (currently 3-3 in the UFC). Pickett eventually won a DWCS fight and earned an official contract to the UFC, but he’s struggled on the main roster, going 2-4 with three of those losses coming via finishes.

To make a long story short: Pickett is a tough competitor who has solid power and a great reach advantage (80 inches to Nickal’s 75 inches), but this is a fight that Nickal should win. DraftKings has Nickal as a -1500 favorite, meanwhile FanDuel is even more bullish on the Greatest Fight In The World, putting its line at -2200.

I give Pickett a lot of credit for getting in there with Bo because there are a lot of middleweights that don’t want this fight — right now and especially in the future. But like we always say: dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same.