Chael Sonnen doesn’t understand why the UFC made Bo Nickal vs. Cody Brundage at UFC 300.
Nickal is set to return to the Octagon for the first time in nearly a year as he’s set to face Brundage at UFC 300 on April 13 in Las Vegas. Once the fight was made, Nickal was a massive betting favorite, which Sonnen says proves his point that this fight shouldn’t be happening.
“Bo Nickal, Cody Brundage, UFC 300… You would think that’s a big fight. UFC 300 is coming up, everybody’s talking about it. You would think this must be a very big fight, Brundage versus Nickal. So, all I’m attempting to do here is figure this out… You are best to not bring me into matchmaking, there is an art to matchmaking, a true art… I want to understand what is going on here. In Bo’s last contest, he was a 24/1 favorite,” Chael Sonnen said on his YouTube channel.
“A 24/1 favorite represented the biggest disparity, biggest line in the history of the UFC. Let’s look at numbers. Bo Nickal is 27 years old, he’s had five fights and his longest went two minutes and 40-something seconds. We’ve now got him in another fight on a featured card, known as 300, he’s a 14/1 favorite. 14/1 is about half as big of a favorite as he was in his last fight, but I can assure you without even seeing the rest of the card, he will be the biggest favorite on the card,” Sonnen said.
Chael Sonnen believes Nickal-Brundage is a ‘squash match’
Along with being confused about the fight booking, Chael Sonnen doesn’t think it will be very competitive at all.
Sonnen thinks this a set-up fight for Nickal to get another win and do so impressively, as the former UFC title contender calls the UFC 300 fight a squash match.
“Why are we doing this? There is no reason to do this fight. I’m just trying to understand. Is this a numbers situation? Do we need to get Bo X amount of fights before he goes in for a title? Do we need to get Bo X amount of fights before he goes into a top-five? Do we need to get him X amount of fights before he goes into a rankings match? Is that all that this is?… How many squash matches can we do?… If he’s not put on the main card, we’re gonna have to look around and go, ‘What are we doing it for?’ Why would we do a squash match… on an undercard?,” Sonnen concluded.
Even though Sonnen thinks Nickal-Brundage is a squash match, bigger upsets have happened and perhaps Brundage will shock the world.
