Bo Nickal’s record is still unblemished. The hyped UFC middleweight star defeated the ever-dangerous veteran Paul Craig at UFC 309 via a unanimous decision to continue his rapid rise in the division. But the most surprising thing about that fight was Nickal not even attempting one takedown on the ‘Bear Jew’ for the entirety of the three rounds. The Penn State alum, of course, is a three-time NCAA wrestling champion, and among the most prolific wrestlers the UFC has ever seen.

And verbose UFC analyst Chael Sonnen is pretty upset at him for not playing to his strengths at UFC 309. “Four-time world champion in wrestling [Nickal] doesn’t do one damn bit of wrestling because somebody got a hold of him. One of his trainers or his training Partners sat him down and said ‘You’re not ready to go to the ground with this guy.’ Well, how in the F would we know that?” an outraged Sonnen asked on his YouTube channel.

What angered ‘Uncle Chael’ was the fact that Nickal didn’t even attempt to use his greatest strength, and blamed his team for it. This, Sonnen felt, was a terrible idea. Giving the example of one of the greatest ever, the former superstar explained exactly why Nickal’s approach to the Craig fight was flawed.

Now Georges St-Pierre, the greatest to have ever done this has never looked at an opponent, decided what the opponent’s good at and that is what he’s going to base his performance around. Georges looks at himself and thinks ‘What are the three things I do best and in what order specifically? Those are the three things that I’m going to go to”, ‘The American Gangster’ added.

Sonnen strongly suggested that Nickal must focus on his own strengths (i.e. wrestling) and not really care about what his opponents’ strengths are. “You do not look at your opponent’s game to decide your strategy... Somebody told him ‘You will put the other guy in his favorite position’. F the other guy and F his favorite position. Do what you do,” Sonnen added.

Well, it seems that Chael Sonnen wasn’t the only one disappointed with Bo Nickal’s performance as a similar sentiment was shared by the UFC 309 crowd and head honcho Dana White.

Dana White feels Bo Nikcal has a ‘lot of work to do’

The MSG crowd wasn’t a big fan of Bo Nickal’s display in this UFC 309 outing. After all, the former NCAA champ was subject to boos and ‘overrated’ chants from the crowd immediately after defeating Paul Craig last night. While Nickal told Joe Rogan in the post-fight interview that he was still pretty happy with his performance, Dana White was far more pensive.

“Bo needs work. Bo is an up-and-coming guy. I know he has big aspirations and wants to move faster than he should, but tonight showed that – I mean, he still dominated, he won the whole fight, but he’s got work to do… When you’re in a position like Bo is, there’s a lot of expectations,” White told the press at the UFC 309 post-fight press conference.

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Of course, Sonnen feels that if Nickal had used his greatest strength and grappled with Craig, the outcome may have been an even more dominant victory. On the other hand, Nickal is also just six fights into his pro MMA career, and cannot be faulted for trying out different things to see what works for him.

However, not even trying to take down Craig even once was a bit surprising. What do you think about Chael Sonnen’s criticism of Nickal’s UFC 309 performance? Tell us in the comment section below!