Reinier de Ridder has all the reasons after his knocked out by Bo Nickal at UFC Des Moines last weekend, but despite his victory, he feels he doesn’t have to step on his opponent in a loss.
The original two divisions of one champion gave a dominant performance to hand over the first defeat of his career to Nikkar, but he did not buy the idea that the three-time National Champion wrestler was somehow exposed. Instead, De Ridder believes he is a better man that night, and he offers Nickal some advice on how he should deal with the blow from the loss.
“It’s always like that,” De Ridar told MMA Fighting on Monday. “There’s a lot of hype around him. Honestly, if he’s smart, he’ll just call another room for two days and spend time with his wife and children.
Only 7-0 in his career, Nikkal was already touted as the future champion, and he didn’t exactly deter anyone from making that argument. Past comments about winning a potential battle with top-ranked middleweights like Kamzachmaev began to circulate shortly after Nikkal was blown up with a body shot that ended his undefeated run in the UFC.
On his part, De Ridar never felt Nikkal was looking past him or approaching a fight with the bulging ego, but he also knows whether a bad loss could humble someone as it happened to him personally.
“The difference between being very confident and rog arrogant is very small,” De Ridar said. “I’ve been a victim of this in the past, but maybe a little. I’m always confident in my abilities, but I’ve also become a little arrogant too. He doesn’t feel like he’s arrogant. To be honest, he was very humble.
“It’s up to him now. I’m in this position. I lost. I lost badly. I basically lost me like this fight. I lost too. I lose too. How far away he’s already in this game, how far he’s distanced he’s at, he can be a very strong individual.
He has so much confidence in Nikkal’s abilities that de Ridder actually hopes they will have the opportunity to work together as the battle between them is over.
“I really want to work with this guy,” De Ridar said. “I want to work with him. It’s great to train together because of the skill set he brings. I’m not really sure if I’m the Killcliff guy right now and he’s (the top team in America) but maybe we’ll keep it under control and can’t tell anyone.”
Nikkal may be falling in the dump now, but De Ridar is absolutely hoping he will bounce off this loss and come back even better than before.
“I’m happy that I had the opportunity to fight him now, not three years,” De Ridder said. “Three years later he will become a murderer. He’s going to run through everyone.”
As far as his own career is concerned, De Ridder hopes that a victory over Nickal will drive him into a bigger and better fight.
Nikkal wasn’t ranked very well, but his name brought much attention to the fight, and De Ridar knocked him out in the second round. With this kind of dramatic victory on his resume, De Ridder hopes to send this performance into an even bigger battle when he returns to action later this year.
“It’s in my mind, I got into the fight. He may not be ranked in the top five, but at least he’s the top five name,” De Ridder said. “In America, everyone knows this guy. He’s very advertised. Everyone was expecting the world from him.
“I hope this really puts me there and fights a guy like (Shawn) Strickland, like I called it. So my fingers crossed.”