Chael Sonnen has his fair share of hot takes, most of which go down like lead balloons in the UFC world. But this time around, the verbose UFC analyst has perhaps gone too far. Asked to pick the hottest prospect of 2024 between Shavkat Rakhmonov, Khamzat Chimaev, and Bo Nickal, ‘Uncle Chael’ picked Nickal.

Why? We will let ‘The Bad Guy’ explain. “I’m gonna roll with Bo [as this year’s hottest prospect]. But I will tell you Chimaev is red hot. And the only reason I give Bo the edge is Bo will fight tomorrow and he’ll fight anywhere in the world,” Sonnen told MMA journalist ‘The Schmo’ in an interview.

“And Chimaev himself has said that he’s got a little trouble getting around. So you know, he’s limited. What he shows us has been impressive. I mean when he beat Kamaru Usman but it took a whole year until he fought Robert Whittaker… He’s beaten two [former] world champions,” he added.

Indeed Sonnen is correct on the availability point. Chimaev, after all, turned down a UFC 297 title shot for the middleweight gold and pulled out of a scheduled clash with Robert Whittaker this year alone because of health issues. Not to mention the Chechnya native cannot enter the United States at the moment, which some attribute to ‘Borz’s closeness to the controversial Chechnya dictator, Ramzan Kadyrov.

In addition, Sonnen felt that on two other significant criteria, it is a wash between Nickal and Chimaev. “One of the things that’s most impressive about him [Chimaev] is how dominant he’s been and that he’s undefeated. I will just remind you Bo is also dominant and Bo is also undefeated,” Sonnen added. On one of these counts, however, Sonnen is wrong and one need not look beyond Nickal and Chimaev’s last fights to see why.

The problems with Sonnen picking Bo Nickal over Khamzat Chimaev as 2024’s hottest prospect

To say Khamzat Chimaev destroyed Robert Whittaker at UFC 308 would not be an even slight exaggeration. After all, ‘Borz’ not only submitted the former champion in the very first round of their late October ’24 clash but also dislocated ‘The Reaper’s front teeth. With this victory, he is now on the cusp of a well-deserved title shot.

On the other hand, Bo Nickal fought and defeated the unranked Paul Craig at UFC 309 via an underwhelming unanimous decision. So lackluster was Nickal’s performance and so disappointed were the fans that they booed the three-time NCAA D1 wrestling champ after the decision was read out. After all, the whole clash was essentially an amateur-level kickboxing match, with Nickal not even attempting one takedown on the Scottish veteran!

All of this is to say that no, Chimaev and Nickal are not dominant in the same way. Not to mention Nickal hasn’t fought anyone of note in his UFC stint so far, while Chimaev has defeated two former world champions in his last two outings, and was fighting tough, top-ranked guys for a couple of fights before that.

In addition, Sonnen’s entire reason for picking Nickal over Chimaev is that the former is available and willing to fight on short notice. By that logic, Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, who took numerous short-notice fights in his career is better than Jon Jones, who once turned down a short-notice fight against Sonnen himself. And that, of course, would be almost as absurd as picking Bo Nickal over Khamzat Chimaev as 2024’s hottest UFC prospect. What do you think about Chael Sonnen’s pick for the hottest UFC prospect for 2024?