UFC 322 just got an excellent fight between elite grapplers, as BJJ legend Rodolfo Vieira will be facing three-time NCAA Division I champion Bo Nickal. It’s an interesting matchup because both men have reached the very top of their grappling sports and they still rely heavily on those skills to win fights. They’ve got 13 submission wins in 22 fights between them and although that would point to this being primarily a grappling match, there’s a well-known phenomenon in MMA fights where two grapplers are both cautious to engage on the ground and end up striking much more than they normally do instead.
There isn’t much to separate Vieira and Nickal when it comes to striking and although they’re both elite grapplers, they approach it from completely different angles. Nickal has incredible wrestling and even in MMA he’s been able to take down a number of very skilled grapplers, so he’ll have the clear advantage in that aspect of the fight. Vieira on the other hand is a multiple-time ADCC and IBJJF World Championship winner, and he’s shown several different paths to victory in his BJJ career. Vieira has fantastic armbars and the ability to finish anyone once he gets to their back, but he also has great top pressure and arm-triangle chokes.
Although Nickal will likely find it easier to get the takedown, Vieira has the skill to sweep him or take his back after that and MMA fans haven’t really seen Nickal fight off his back before. Along with having different specialties, they’re each coming at the fight from different points in their careers too. Vieira has gone 4-3 in his last 7 fights but is coming off a decision win over Tresean Gore where he showed that he’d improved both his cardio and striking. Nickal on the other hand was on a meteoric rise through the middleweight division that was abruptly stopped earlier this year when Reinier de Ridder finished him in the second round of their fight and shattered his undefeated record.
Verdict MMA announced the news that Rodolfo Vieira was going to face Bo Nickal at UFC 322 in a recent post to their official X account:
