Bo Nickal: “There’s no one to blame but yourself,” Taking Responsibility for Losses
UFC prospect Bo Nickal has spoken about how he wants to take ownership for his failures as he prepares to return to the cage tomorrow night.
At UFC 322, Bo Nickal will attempt to get back in the win column when he goes head to head with Rodolfo Vieira on the prelims. It serves as his first fight since he suffered his first defeat in mixed martial arts, which came at the hands of Reinier de Ridder. RDR was able to make it a fairly one-sided affair before eventually finishing off the amateur wrestling sensation.
For many, this gave them permission to clown on Bo Nickal for not being able to keep his win streak going. Alas, Bo has been through his fair share of setbacks before, and although he firmly believes in his ability to become a world champion in the UFC, he also knows that he is competing against the best of the best – and de Ridder certainly falls into that category.
In his pre-fight scrum, Bo Nickal opened up on how he tends to handle defeats like this, and how he wants to respond.
Bo Nickal discusses recent UFC defeat
“If you look at MMA and wrestling, there’s no one to blame but yourself. If you lose, you can look at the judges, you can look at your opponent, but ultimately it always comes back to you. It’s on you to take responsibility, learn, and continue to push forward. So that’s been my approach—I’m embracing that.”
“The mindset for me—every single day—whether I win or lose, I’m always trying to improve and get better. It doesn’t matter if I’ve won ten fights in a row or I just lost my last one, I’m just going to keep pushing to become the best fighter in the world. That doesn’t change.”
Nickal knows that there will be plenty of eyes on him to see how he performs against Vieira, but either way, he has opted to get back in there and prove himself – which, given the emphatic nature of his loss to de Ridder, is admirable in itself.
