Bo Nickal voiced his opinion on performance-enhancing drugs and what could happen if he fights someone who uses them.
UFC middleweight Bo Nickal recently appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast called The JRE MMA Show. During their two-hour discussion, they talked about various topics, including performance-enhancing drugs, which Rogan has always been intrigued by.
Earlier this year, the UFC had a falling out with USADA, leading to the worldwide leader in MMA signing a partnership with Drug Free Sport starting in 2024. While talking about PEDS with Rogan, Nickal had this to say about potentially fighting someone using illegal drugs:
“We’ll see what the UFC’s drug-testing program is like since USADA is over at the end of the year. It is what it is. I’m pretty confident in myself regardless, and If I got to fight a dude that’s juiced up, and you’re willing to try to take a back door to try to get an advantage and win, I think you’re probably cutting corners in a lot of other areas, as well, which I’m not doing.”
Nickal continued by detailing why he believes PED users will have a disadvantage against him:
“I just think if they are willing to go outside the rules and [use performance-enhancing drugs], to me that’s like they’re trying to get an unfair advantage. That’s kind of like a character thing. They wanna get that advantage, so to me, that means they’re fearful that they wouldn’t be able to do it without it. They might be doing everything right, but I know that in their mind, there’s a little weakness there to me. I can take advantage of that and capitalize on that.”
Watch Joe Rogan and Bo Nickal talk about PEDs below:
Bo Nickal is intrigued by the “optimization of human performance” reached by using performance-enhancing drugs
Bo Nickal made it clear during his appearance on The JRE MMA Show that he hasn’t used PEDs during his athletic career. With that said, he is interested in seeing how the drugs would help him become the best athlete possible. Nickal had this to say:
“It is interesting to think about what would I be like if I was doing these things. I can compete at such a high level already. I think that my biggest asset in wrestling and in fighting is my mind. Imagine my body was [on the same level]. With time, I’m very disciplined and do things a certain way, I’m gonna get to as close as I could be, but there is this other level that’s kind of unnatural where it’s interesting to think about, but while I’m competing, it’s obviously not an option.”
Joe Rogan told Bo Nickal about Enhanced Games, which is a proposed Olympic format of competitions where athletes can openly use PEDs. Nickal responded to the idea with the following quote:
“I like it. I like that. Let’s do it and just be honest about it like, yo, this is the deal, this is what we do. Let’s see fricking see how far we can go. That stuff is interesting to me, the optimization of human performance. How far can you get? Let’s do it. That’ll be fun.”
Bo Nickal made his UFC debut on March 4 after securing two wins on Dana White’s Contender Series. Since then, Nickal has defeated Jamie Pickett and Val Woodburn in impressive fashion to validate the tremendous hype he received before signing with the UFC.
On April 13, 2024, Nickal will fight under the UFC banner for the third time at the highly-anticipated UFC 300. The former Penn State wrestler has been matched up against Cody Brundage, who is riding a two-fight win streak.
