Bo Nickal and Gable Steveson are no longer friends.
In recent years, there have been no greater transitions to wrestling-MMA than the respective collegiate and Olympic stops of Nickal and Steveson. After his pro MMA debut in 2022, Nickal immediately became one of the most anticipated of the sport, and the UFC signed him just three fights into his career. This past year, the same thing happened with heavyweight Steveson, who retired in late 2025.
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Nickal, 30, is slated for his first UFC main event against fellow middleweight contender Joe Pyfer in February at UFC Cleveland. Meanwhile, Steveson recently suffered his first devastating career loss in September when Sean Sharaf knocked him out in the closing seconds of UFC 331.
Speaking on Monday’s edition of “The Ariel Helwani Show,” Nickal said the MMA fighter felt bad after a tumultuous fight week.
“On the rip, I felt bad,” Nickal said. “He seems to have come out and dropped, especially with the site in it, where he is under a lot of scrutiny. Because there is a lot of material under scrutiny, I don’t know a lot of information or inside what happened. So if nothing is true, I would feel very bad for him. But obviously, if it is true, that is.
In 2019, Steveson faced accusations of sexual assault, which became a hot-button issue that resurfaced during his last fight last week. Steveson ultimately faced no criminal charges in relation to the allegations.
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Nickal is no stranger to tasting defeat in tough upsets. In May 2025, the Penn State alum suffered a second-round knockout TKO to the knee from Reinier de Ridder, snapping his seven-fight undefeated streak.
Since then, Nickal has bounced back with two solid stoppage wins over Rodolfo Vieira and Kyle Daukaus, while also picking up a freestyle bout with RAF. In the latter’s final appearance — coincidentally at the RAF’s Cleveland event — Nickal said he and Steveson surprisingly locked horns behind the scenes of a prepared press conference.
“And fight before [against Elisha Ellison]it was strange; he just started talking crap about me really randomly,” Nickal said. “It was weird. He said what he had to say, and I don’t know if anyone told him to say these kinds of things, or why he was doing the tearing. Because he and I were always very pleasant and very nice to each other, and he talked a lot, and I was respected. So, by the way, I was a little surprised.
“Then we had the RAF thing, where I was competing in the same event later, and I went up to him, and I was like, ‘Bro, what’s wrong with you? Why are you talking about me being crazy?’ And it was as if: You are talking about me. And I answered you like, but we are both wrestlers. We come from the same background: American wrestling. We must support each other. I have said nothing but good things about you in the media, and let us do so.’
Bo Nickal returns to face Joe Pyfer in February at UFC Cleveland.
(Sean Jorgensen via Getty Images)
“Pere, it kind of got heated in that place, and we were talking about wrestling, doing the fight, and I was like, ‘Bro, what are you even saying, man? This is crazy,'” Nickal continued. “And he was like — I remember it so graphically — he’s like, ‘I’m going to shoot you.’ Until he said that to me. And I’m like, I’m not going to knock myself out absolutely. I don’t know if I’m going to beat you in a fight, but I’m going to lose you in a fight. I’m totally confident in that.” Then I said to him, ‘You have no defense.’ You are not experienced enough to get away from these influences. That will happen with time. That will come with experience. I also learned this when I fought ‘RDR,’ so like, you had to learn these things.’
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“And then boom – how many weeks later [he gets knocked out].
Although Nickal MMA’s prediction finally came true, it was funny enough that I didn’t even watch to see it, he said. Nickal was asleep before waking up to countless texts and calls asking if he had seen Steveson’s fight with Sharaf, and was embarrassed to hear how it went.
Even though Steveson was right now, Nickal admits that he still feels bad about how things turned out. At first he was confused as to where the relationship between them went south. And when their feud flares up, Nickal Steveson doesn’t believe he’ll ever fight him right away as he’s harassed the Olympians.
“He sucks, and we’ll see how he responds to this [loss]”Nickal said. “We’ll see if getting back on the grind, getting back to work, and big setbacks can lead to big comebacks. So I hope he can figure out his stuff, and I’m still, I mean, again, everything between us is weird, but I still want to pull it out for him and I want to do well.
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He’s like, ‘If we fight, I’m going to beat you up,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m here, bro. I’m here,’ and he’s like, ‘Okay, I remember.’ [He wasn’t going to] anything to me That’s the eros itself.
“I didn’t feel like we were going to fight, but there was more of an argument that would happen if we did, and I just said, ‘No defense.’ You’re inexperienced,” and then it was clearly the real thing, and we all saw what happened.”
In the end, Nickal believes that the people around Steveson may be the reason for the sudden stabbing that was discovered by Steveson.
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Steveson has assembled a notable crowd to help him kickstart his MMA career, including all-time great former UFC champion Jon Jones. But in particular, Nickal Jones does not think that one is at fault, as the two are always cool with each other, he said.
“It’s just weird because I don’t really want that beef to begin with,” Nickal said.
“I think, honestly, the advice from people to go after me, because when you look at my position in the media and the position, like maybe I can look at the sign that a lot of casual fans think I’m privileged, ‘any wrestler,’ that’s it. So maybe it takes advice to go after me from someone. But I don’t know. It was just for me.”