Today, Bo Nickal never fails to entertain fans from inside the octagon. However, it wasn’t too long ago that the 29-year-old was mesmerizing the audience with his skills on the mat as a Penn State wrestler. And now as the 3x NCAA champion looks at his alma mater’s wrestling roster, he thinks one of Cael Sanderson‘s mentees has what it takes to follow him to the UFC.

On February 18, the MMA fighter seemed nostalgic about where he comes from. “I want to take a minute to acknowledge my roots,” Nickal wrote in an X post, and set the stage for fans to hit him up with wrestling questions, Before too long, queries started pouring in, with one fan wondering if Bo had any thoughts about wrestlers who could make it in the UFC.

“Carter Starocci,” was the first name on the 3x Big Ten gold medalist’s list. Starocci, a Penn State senior and a four-time individual national champ, is looking to make history in his final collegiate year by bagging his fifth NCAA D1 title, and Bo Nickal thinks the octagon could be the place where his NLWC successor could look to continue his career.

Poised to become the first five-time NCAA champion, Starocci would be feeling confident going into the NCAA Championships, scheduled for next month. The 4x All-American wrestler has also been a driving force behind the Lions’ national success in the last three years. For understandable reasons, Bo sees Starocci as an unstoppable force who would make it inside the octagon as well.

Along with Carter, Bo also named Nebraska alum Tyler Berger, UNC’s two-time NCAA champion Austin O’Connor, and Wyoming’s Archie Colgan among others as collegiate stars who could also be dominant in the UFC.

For those who have followed Nickal’s career with a keen eye, it’s not surprising that the MMA star has the ability to spot talents. Bo joined with some of the country’s top wrestling stars to train the USA’s U20 World Championships hopefuls last year. Among them, the U17 world champ Bo Bassett was spotted training with Kyle Dake and the Penn State alum. But could the tenured combat sports star be right about Starocci’s career?

Bo Nickal knows what Carter Starocci is made of

Nickals’ speculations might not be based on entirely made-up scenarios, either. Starocci already had his taste of MMA when he joined Bo at American Top Team MMA Gym in Pleasant Gap last year to train together. They were also joined by another NLWC sensation Aaron Brooks, a four-time NCAA champ himself. It raised a question: was Carter indeed following the Penn State alum’s footsteps to the UFC? While that didn’t happen then, and Carter returned to don the NLWC singlet for one final year, Bo seems to remember his sparring with the Penn State senior all too well.

But can Carter find the right mentor should he decide to try his hands at UFC after his Penn State journey runs its course? Considering it was Bo Nickal’s wrestling career that left a mark in the mind of POTUS Donald Trump, one would care to speculate if he is indeed a better athlete on the mat rather than inside the metal fighting pit.

But hey, speculations and hypothesizing are all we have as fans! That’s the beauty of it. We can make conjectures about anything: from Cael Sanderson coaching the national team for the next Olympics to Carter Starocci taking a page out of Bo Nickal’s book: the daydreaming supplies are endless. What about you? Would you care to see if the Penn State wrestler has what it takes to make history as the first-ever 5-time NCAA wrestling champ and begin building his career from scratch in a new environment? Tell us in a comment!