Bo Nickal gives his reason for not moving up to wrestle Gable Steveson when he had the chance

While there is no doubt about the three-time NCAA Division I champion Bo Nickal's unparalleled wrestling prowess, an inquisitive fan feels that the 27-year-old should have moved up in weight to face Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson at the NCAA championship in 2018.

Twitter user @bartlesonpaul asked Nickal:

"This is a good take. It makes a guy wonder why@NoBickal didn't bump up to wrestle Gable Steveson in 2018? Legendary matchup. It should have happened. Why didn't it Bo?"

Responding to the tweet, Nickal reasoned that he had already moved up several weight classes during his career, and also that one of his teammates was already competing at heavyweight:

"Because I already bumped from 174 to 184 to 197 weighing 195-200. And we had an absolute animal at hwt that took care of biz I didn’t need to."

Nickal's former Penn State teammate Anthony Cassar wrestles at heavyweight and has registered two wins against Steveson in the NCAA and Big Ten Championships.

Watch Anthony Cassar triumph over Gable Steveson at the Big Ten Championship below:

It is not surprising that Bo Nickal and Gable Steveson never met on the mats since both fighters compete in different weight classes. Stevenson wrestles in the 275lbs category, while the highest Nickal has fought in is at 213lbs.

The highly accomplished wrestler joined the UFC ranks earlier in 2022 after two impressive performances in Dana White's Contender Series (DWCS) season 6. He is scheduled to make his UFC debut against Jamie Pickett at UFC 285 on March 4.

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Aljamain Sterling says fighters are scared of Bo Nickal's high-caliber wrestling

In a recent video uploaded to his YouTube channel, UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling suggested that fighters were going to try and duck Bo Nickal because of his wrestling prowess.

'Funk Master' opined that seeing Nickal quickly dispatch two high-level fighters during his DWCS run is sure to have instilled fear in other competitors:

"Who's going to fight Bo? Like, you had this one guy training with Robert Drysdale, jiu-jitsu ace. He gets smoked. You have a guy who's fighting for Cage Fury, who is 7 and 1. You'd think there'd be some type of resistance? This guy looks tentative and he looks very hesitant of doing anything because of the threat of the takedown and knowing what that would lead to."

Watch Aljamain Sterling talk about Bo Nickal below:

Bo Nickal is a three-time NCAA Division I champion and an under-23 freestyle wrestling world champion. The former collegiate wrestler is 3-0 in mixed martial arts.