What’s next for Bo Nickal after suffering first defeat via liver shiver at UFC Des Moines?

Adam Guillen has been writing (and translating) for MMAmania.com since 2011, covering the latest UFC, Bellator, PFL and other mixed martial arts (MMA) news and latest happenings throughout the combat sports world.

UFC Des Moines went down this past weekend (Sat., May 3, 2025) inside Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa, leaving several fighters feeling the post-fight blues. Among them was Deiveson Figueiredo, who lost to Cory Sandhagen via second round technical knockout because he couldn’t play 50/50 with “Sandman” (see it again here).

And Santiago Ponzinibbio, who was stopped via strikes by Daniel Rodriguez (highlights). But, which fighter is suffering from the worst post-fight hangover, now a few days removed from the show?

Bo Nickal.

Coming into the event, Nickal was eager to show fight fans — especially the legion of critics — that he was ready to take the next big step against the toughest test of his young mixed martial arts (MMA) career in the former of Reinier de Ridder. In fact, it was a massive step up in competition that the wrestling standout actually requested (details here).

Unfortunately for Nickal, he fell flat in the biggest fight of his career.

And that’s all because de Ridder showed him that there are indeed levels to this game. For the majority of the fight, the former ONE double-champion had his way with Nickal, frustrating him with his strikes, leaving him bewildered as to what to do when things got hot.

In the second round, “The Dutch Knight” once again put the pressure on and started tagging Nickal at-will, ultimately hurting him with one devastating knee after another until one found the liver sweet spot, sending the former three-time NCAA Division 1 wrestling champion down to the canvas in defeat.

“Grateful for the highs and lows,” Nickal wrote in a short social media post. “I’ll be back.”

For Nickal, it was a hard lesson to learn in suffering his first-ever defeat, and will now have to hear the endless criticism from all the people who felt he was over-hyped and predicted he would lose once he faced a tough challenge.

At least he still has this guy backing him.

Nickal will have to literally go back to the drawing board and fix what needs fixing. And judging by Saturday’s performance, there’s a lot he needs to work on if he ever wants to be truly successful in the fight game. De Ridder is legit, but he is not the cream of the crop in a division full of sharks.

The good news? Nickal, 29, is still very young in the sport and has the time to get sharper, get better, which all comes with experience. Since making his Octagon debut in March 2023, he has only competed five times, so perhaps fighting a bit more frequently is a good start.

As far as what could potentially be next for him, perhaps a fight against Chris Curtis is in order. Curtis has had a pretty rough stretch of late, losing two straight fights at the hands of Brendan Allen and Roman Kopylov.

It would be an obvious step back for Nickal, but it’s a necessary one.

He’s got to catch up.

For complete UFC Des Moines results, coverage and highlights click HERE.