Andre
Petroski has been calling Bo Nickal out
since before the decorated wrestler’s
Ultimate Fighting Championship debut — and he continues to do
so.
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Petroski started calling out the three-time NCAA national champion
for a grappling or MMA matchup before his unanimous decision win
over Wellington
Turman in November 2022. Petroski doubled down on his callout
after a spilt-decision win over Gerald
Meerschaert at UFC 292 in August 2023.
However, Petroski has since suffered consecutive stoppage losses
against Michel
Pereira and Jacob
Malkoun. Petroski will now look to return to the win column
against Josh Fremd
at UFC
on ESPN 59 on Saturday. Petroski believes a win over Fremd
could put him right back into talks of a potential matchup against
Nickal.
Malkoun recently announced a matchup with Nickal for UFC 302 in New
Jersey, which was immediately denied by the latter’s management and
ultimately didn’t come to fruition. However, Petroski had deemed
the announcement to be true as he thought it was a stylistically
favorable matchup for Nickal.
Nickal’s first two UFC outings ended in first-round stoppage wins
against less-skilled opponents on the ground. While Nickal most
recently submitted a grappler in Cody
Brundage at UFC 300 this past April, it was the first time he
saw the second round of a fight in his pro and amateur MMA career.
However, the fact that Nickal has started fighting wrestlers gives
Petroski hope of a potential clash down the line.
“I do think it could put me in a position to get a Bo Nickal fight…
Obviously, Bo didn’t sign the contract to fight Malkoun. But when
it was announced I thought that it was official,” Petroski said on
Just Scrap Radio. “I was just thinking that it
makes total sense that they watched our fight and they saw how
easily I took him down and they were like, ‘Oh, this is a perfect
matchup for Bo.’ On paper Bo would be a way higher level wrestler.
But nonetheless they are looking to fight grapplers, which was not
what they wanted to do before. They only fought [Jamie] Pickett, or
Val [Woodburn]… They fought no grapplers, no one that could
grapple. Then he fought Cody
Brundage, who’s a grappler. I imagine I’m somewhere down the
line.”