Yoel Romero knows he deserves the blame for missing weight for his wrestling match against Bo Nickal at RAF 5 in January, but he still believed the highly touted UFC prospect should have faced him on the mats that night.
While it wasn’t the main event, the showdown between Romero and Nickal was one of the most anticipated matches ever booked in RAF. Unfortunately, Romero came in seven pounds overweight and Nickal opted not to move forward with the match. The 48-year-old Olympic silver medalist decided to still compete on the card, instead facing NCAA champion Stephen Buchanan, who handily defeated Romero.
Even though it was a wrestling and not MMA, Romero feels Nickal was likely saving face by not moving forward with the match because the results could come back to haunt him one day.
“The first thing, you’ve got to respect everybody’s point of view,” Romero told MMA Fighting. “You can’t get somebody else to think the way that you think. That’s why this country is so wonderful because you have the ability to make decisions and do what you feel. Bo Nickal is just thinking about his career and that was Bo’s priority was himself and his career. On top of that, I understand with my background and how successful I’ve been and how powerful I’ve been in wrestling, to not want to fight me, especially with me being seven pounds above weight.
“Overall, Bo Nickal is not just thinking about what’s happening at RAF for wrestling, he’s also thinking about his career in the UFC. Bo had just had a big victory in the UFC and that’s coming off a bad loss and then coming off a win to come fight me knowing what I could have done to him. When you’re so preoccupied with what people think, especially the fans and another organization, these are the kind of decisions people are prone to make just to protect themselves. You tend to worry more about what people think about you and what this could do for your career than what you’re doing for the sport.”
Romero was a prominent wrestler in his day, but it’s undeniable that the vast majority of his fame came from competing in the UFC where he was a multi-time title challenger and constant threat in the middleweight division.
Meanwhile, Nickal is still working his way up the ranks and has long been pegged as a future champion in the UFC after claiming three NCAA titles while wrestling at Penn State. Romero knows losing to him—no matter the sport—wouldn’t look good for Nickal.
“I was a fighter in the UFC, so I’ve been in the UFC and I was released from the UFC,” Romero said. “To have Bo Nickal come in and even though it’s not a UFC match or MMA match but wrestling, to lose against me—Bo Nickal is probably somebody in talks to fight someone like Khamzat Chimaev. It probably wouldn’t look good for him to lose against me in a wrestling match when Chimaev’s strength is wrestling. That’s what it all boils down to. That’s what I’m thinking.
“Basically, you’re going in to fight me and then you have to worry not about the repercussions of your career but what people are going to say and on top of that you’re fighting me at seven pounds above the contracted weight.”
Romero says if Nickal was putting the sport of wrestling ahead of his own goals and desires the match probably would have proceeded. Instead, Nickal was risking potential public humiliation if he wrestled and lost—and that may have became his priority after Romero missed weight.
“If he would have been thinking about the sport and what this is doing, obviously RAF and the platform that it’s creating, if he really would have cared more about the sport than himself, he would have gone through with the match,” Romero said. “The mentality of a wrestler in the sport of wrestling is very different than the mentality of a mixed martial artist in the sport of mixed martial arts. The sport of wrestling, you’ve got to think about what you’re doing today is going to be beneficial to your future. Olympic cycle has four years. So you’ve got people, they prepare for three years for the Olympics. Overall, you’re worried about the results, not so much about your future but how you keep improving towards your goal, which is doing well and winning a medal in the Olympic games.
“That’s not the case with Bo Nickal. Bo Nickal is protecting himself in RAF, he can’t take a loss against me because of what that might do for him in the UFC.”
After Nickal turned down the match, Romero ended up suffering a loss to Buchanan by technical fall, which obviously wasn’t the result he wanted.
That said, Romero understood that competing that night mattered more for the sport of wrestling than his own ego being attached to winning or losing.
“I went forward with the match, they changed my opponent and I went forward with the match,” Romero said. “Basically, that’s because what RAF is doing is for the good of the sport. I really pushed myself hard for that weight when there was some back and forth on health issues and what not of my opponent but I went through and I fought and I could have backed out but I know how important it was for me to fight on that stage and the sport. So I went through with it. It is what it is.
“At the end of the day it’s all about the sport and growing the sport and bringing some of the legends from back in the day in this beautiful platform and just helping the future of the sport to move forward. It’s a shame the fight didn’t happen but I went out and competed and I did my thing. I’m hopeful that the sport keeps evolving and growing where it needs to be. I’m hopeful that eventually that match between me and Bo takes place.”
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