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Bo Nickal's UFC 309 performance has raised doubts in a section of the community about his chances in a potential Khamzat Chimaev fight. One of MMA's most notable referees has chimed in on the topic. On the latest episode of the Weighing In podcast, former UFC veteran Josh Thomson spoke with tenured former MMA referee John McCarthy about some of the big happenings of last weekend's pay-per-view.
McCarthy in recent years stepped away from refereeing and dove more into analyst and broadcasting roles with promotions like Bellator MMA. The subject of Nickal's performance against Paul Craig had many fans jeering the American for not shooting for a single takedown and having a fight that many saw as a less-than-exciting stand-up battle.
McCarthy prefaced his statements by saying Nickal was learning and getting better in his young professional MMA career. He said:
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"He can control where the fight goes. That's a huge aspect of it. But if you're going to take a look and go, you know people were talking about Bo Nickal against Khamzat Chimaev. Look at it, one of them's a wrestler and one of them's a fighter. The wrestler is not going to win in that competition."
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Check out John McCarthy's thoughts on a possible Bo Nickal vs. Khamzat Chimaev clash below (41:40):
Chael Sonnen on Khamzat Chimaev vs. Bo Nickal
Chael Sonnen has also come out following the events of Nov. 16 to quip about how Bo Nickal has more room to improve and learn. In a post-fight video, Sonnen expressed frustration about Nickal's UFC 309 performance.
The former multi-division UFC title challenger said that the discourse of Nickal being fast-tracked to a title shot and being side-by-side with Khamzat Chimaev is now a moot point, at least for the foreseeable future.
Sonnen assessed that someone got in the ear of the decorated wrestler about how it wasn't favorable to go to the ground against such a submission threat off their back like Paul Craig.
