DDP: Cocky Bo Got ‘Served Humble Pie — The Full Pie’
Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
The UFC middleweight champion has not forgotten about all the trash talk Nickal threw his way over the past two years.
Bo Nickal has gotten a lot of hate from fans since losing a one-sided beatdown to Reinier De Ridder at last week’s UFC Iowa event.
Many were excited to watch the bubble burst on one of the UFC’s handpicked prospects. How fair that is depends on your opinion of Bo and what his potential is after a bunch of his shortcomings were exposed in a way only MMA makes possible. According to Nickal’s coach, he’s just a man in an arena doing his best. The unspoken bit: who are you, armchair quarterback, to talk s—t?
Well, here’s fellow man in the arena / UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis to rub some salt into Bo’s wounds. Nickal had talked a lot of trash about du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev and a number of other top middleweights. Now they’re firing back.
Dricus du Plessis says it was ‘satisfying’ to see Bo Nickal get humbled against RDR
“You gotta be careful how you talk in this game. You start talking when you get there.
Humble pie does wonderful things for a man. It was satisfying.”
@siasduplessispic.twitter.com/2WWiwSx5ig
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) May 7, 2025
“I have no problem with Bo Nickal’s hype,” he said on the Sias du Plessis Show (via MMA Junkie). “What I do have a problem with was: he was talking about people who have done what he has never done. He became a three-time NCAA champion if I’m not mistaken. Well, this is not wrestling, my good man, and he found that out the hard way. I think he thought he was going to walk through Reinier, and I thought Reinier had a beautiful game plan.”
“You’ve got to be careful how you talk in this game,” du Plessis continued. “You start talking when you get there. He’s fought nobodies in terms of being able to talk, and then going and saying, ‘The championship fight was s—t; these guys can’t wrestle, that’s not impressive, that win.’ Humble pie does wonderful things for a man, and I think he got served a full pie.”
“It was satisfying to watch because you can’t just disrespect the people who’ve done what you wish you could do. He had this aura of, ‘I am champion, nobody can out-wrestle me, I can out-wrestle anybody.’ He was talking about wrestling, wrestling, wrestling. This is not wrestling, this is fighting.”
just incase anyone missed it last night, here's Bo Nickal getting finished pic.twitter.com/SsC255vpx4
— AJ (@PrestigePrince9) May 4, 2025
“In my honest opinion, that knee, it was a proper knee,” he said referring to Nickal dropping to one knee in the cage. “Bo Nickal gave up. Bo Nickal was broken mentally. And that’s why he took the knee. He wasn’t dropped by the knee. The knee caught him. It was a good knee, but if you’re going down for knees like that, good luck at the top because the shots are a lot harder.”
Bo Nickal talked a big game, but the pace of fights and level of opponents he was getting from UFC suggested maybe the promotion didn’t believe he could walk the walk. Even de Ridder was a soft booking, the kind of opponent with enough holes and flaws for Nickal to exploit and beat.
But it’s back to the drawing board for Bo, and hopefully he returns with a bit more humility when he’s talking about the fighters at the top of his division.
