UFC middleweight fighter Bo Nickal has caused quite a stir in the BJJ community. Nickal was less than pleased with what happened at the Craig Jones Invitational. The grappling tournament saw two Nittany Lion wrestlers, Jason Nolf and Greg Kerkvliet, and former UFC Champion Luke Rockhold lose their opening matches. Nickal called out the officiating in these matches, compared the performances of wrestlers against BJJ competitors and even issued a daring challenge.

At the Craig Jones Invitational, Jason Nolf, who was one of the favorites to win the $1 million cash prize, lost to Tye Ruotolo. The Penn State wrestler struggled to keep up with Ruotolo’s BJJ style, losing out in the third round via submission. Before that Rockhold was beaten by Pat Downey via unanimous decision. Reflecting on the tough time the grapplers had against BJJ opponents and some of the decisions, Nickal didn’t hold back.

Nickal tweeted, “I’d like to open a challenge to any current top ranked jiujitsu competitor. Enter the 2024 USA Wrestling World Team Trials on 9/13/24 and if you make it past the 1st period in a match (3 min) I’ll give you $10k cash. Criteria: Cannot be a former wrestler, must be purely Jiujitsu athlete.”  This caused many BJJ fans to respond to his tweet with one fan asking him to do the opposite of it and get a wrestler to compete in a BJJ tournament. Not the one to shy away, Nickal had a response ready.

Praising Nolf for his effort, he replied, “Jason nolf went 13 min with one of the best bjj athletes in the world last night and did great. One judge had him winning a round.” Despite coming off as harsh in his earlier tweet, Nickal clarified, “I think it would be fun for more people to cross over to other disciplines in general it’s not a disrespect thing. Just good fun.”

Nickal is suggesting to level the playing field since the Craig Jones Invitational is a Jiu-Jitsu tournament where wrestlers compete against experienced BJJ fighters. However, we have seen occasions where wrestlers have come out on top in such a competition.

Last year, former UFC star Demetrious Johnson, whose MMA background is in wrestling, won gold at the IBJJF World Master Championship in Las Vegas. Impressively, this was the first time Johnson competed in BJJ.

This was after wrestler Pat Downey defeated former UFC champion Luke Rockhold in the same tournament. Rockhold’s below-par fitness made it easy for Downey as he cruised towards victory with a decision. Nickal said after the match, “CJI judging is a joke. Pat Downey just proved bjj isn’t real and his opponent flopped on his back for 15 min. What a disgrace.” However, this led to another tussle.

A user commented under his post, “Name a more iconic duo than wrestlers who can’t pass guard and complaining about BJJ,” seemingly a dig at Rockhold. Nickal as ever was quick to respond.

“Name a more iconic duo than weak bjj guys locking closed guard and complaining about not being able to do literally anything to wrestlers with little bjj training,” a part of his tweet read. This isn’t the first time that Nickal has made noise in BJJ circles.

Last year in March, on the On The Rocks podcast, he claimed that he beat an entire BJJ school on his first day in BJJ. Interestingly, Nickal has also competed in a BJJ match, which involved hybrid rules.

Nickal went up against arguably the greatest no–gi grappler, Gordan Ryan in a BJJ match on December 7th, 2019 as part Third Coast Grappling 3. The rules of the match attempted to bridge the gap between the two disciplines of wrestling and BJJ with no possibility of a win by technical fall and no guard pulling.

The 15-minute contest ended when Ryan put Nickal in a triangle choke, forcing him to submit. It will be interesting to see if any BJJ fighter takes up this challenge. However, Nolf on the other hand has different problems.

Jason Nolf accused of cheating against Tye Ruotolo

Despite Tye Ruotolo’s victory, he found something suspicious in the fight against Jason Nolf. When he was trying to take him down, he felt that Nolf’s body was too slippery. He said, “I felt like I was just gripping on the freaking bar of soap,” Ruotolo then claimed that he asked Nolf whether he greased his legs before the fight.

He said, “Did you grease your legs? I asked him. He’s like, ‘Yeah.’ I can’t even believe he admitted it, you know. You’re not supposed to do that,” Nolf, however, did not comment on this situation. This could have serious repercussions for his career if the claim is proven correct. Regardless, he needs to go back to the drawing board and shake things up, especially since he didn’t make the Olympics either.