Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson might be one of the most hyped prospects in the history of the sport and it seems inevitable that he’s eventually going to make his way to the UFC.
With his third professional fight scheduled for Thursday in the main event of MFL 3 from Mexico, Steveson is already viewed as a generational talent but those kinds of expectations can also feel like a weight crashing down on somebody with so little experience in the sport. Nobody understands that better than Bo Nickal, the three-time NCAA champion wrestler from Penn State, who only had one fight before getting the call to compete on Dana White’s Contender Series and just two wins later, he was already on the UFC roster.
Nickal found out rather quickly that hype can serve as both a blessing and a curse and he expects that Steveson is going to face those same potential highs and lows in his career.
“I think that for my career every decision we made, we did the best with what we could and the information that we had,” Nickal told MMA Fighting. “I think that obviously my career was going way faster than I expected, than my coaches expected, but also finishing everybody in the first or second round, I had one decision win against a guy in Paul Craig that’s beaten a former champion. It’s tough to say or predict without knowing the future, which nobody does.
“In regards to Gable, I would say the career stuff and everything, it’s going to work out the way it’s supposed to. Just continue to focus on getting better at fighting, getting better at your sport. Being disciplined. Staying committed to your goals. Regardless of who you fight, what’s the opponent, how fast your career is moving, I think that it’s really more just about continuing to grow and improve and get better.”
Nickal’s longtime head coach Mike Brown previously told MMA Fighting that the entire team knew that the UFC was probably rushing him into bigger and tougher fights before he was truly ready. But that’s also expected when you join the promotion with so much hype not to mention earning a hefty payday along the way.
After suffering a brutal body shot knockout to Reinier de Ridder this past May, Nickal felt how quickly you can go from being praised as a future champion to an overrated bum who was supposedly never any good to begin with.
It took time after that loss for Nickal to reset and prepare for his comeback but he certainly made the most of that opportunity after scoring a devastating head kick knockout over Rodolfo Vieira. He expects Steveson to face that same level of scrutiny where every move he makes is going to be analyzed and oftentimes criticized.
Nickal says the key is just staying centered and not letting the outside noise affect you.
“You can always play the ‘what if’ game or hindsight is 20/20 or people try to politic their way into certain matchups, this, that,” Nickal explained. “I look at it [like] like other people can worry about that for me. I’m worried about just improving, getting better as a fighter, growing as a person every single day and being present.
“For him, I would just say the same thing. Just focus on getting better at fighting and whatever the matchups are, you’ll figure it out. If you win or lose a fight, you’re still Gable Steveson. So try to be yourself and try to improve.”
Of course, Nickal’s journey might actually inform how Steveson is perceived because for all his athleticism and pedigree as one of the most accomplished wrestlers to ever transition into MMA, he’s still a young, unproven fighter.
Nickal confessed that even he was caught off guard by how quickly some people were ready to crown him champion before he barely got his feet wet in the UFC. Perhaps to his detriment, Nickal listened to those compliments a little bit too much and the reaction to some of his statements came back to bite him.
“One of the comments that I made early in my career that a lot of people gave me backlash on, which I think it was misunderstood was, I talked about fighting Khamzat [Chimaev] and being a -1000 favorite against him when I fought him,” Nickal explained. “Obviously, people can put their own spin on that but really what I meant about that was how crazy the odds were for all my fights.
“It wasn’t about saying I’m going to beat Khamzat 10 times out of 10, this guy’s easy. I never thought that. I never felt like this guy wouldn’t be a challenge. But I felt like the mania of the way that the odds were and how just crazy the view of me and the hype was at one point. I was like this is insane. I was like I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the view once I get there. I think people obviously took that as a dig to him. It’s hard.”
That’s where the balancing act comes in for Nickal, Steveson or any other prospect with a whole lot of eyeballs on them early in their careers.
But Nickal has learned through trials and tribulations that he’s still got a lot of room to grow and evolve as a fighter and he hopes Steveson knows the same as he prepares for a potential future in the UFC.
“Obviously, some people say I suck, some people thought coming my first fight in the UFC I could be the champion, right then and there,” Nickal said. “The reality is it’s probably somewhere in the middle.
“My view is I’m just going to continue to improve and get better and I’m not doing this because I want the results. I’m doing this because I love the process and that’s what’s carrying me through wins, losses, tough days in training, easy days in training, successes, failures — it’s just focusing on the process, continuing to improve and get better and enjoy what I’m doing.”
