Bo Nickal will be back in action this weekend in his first co-main event fight on a UFC card. The promotion is coming to Des Moines for a Fight Night, but the 29-year-old prospect appears to be on the verge of losing out on his upcoming fight against Reinier De Ridder. Why? Well, the Penn State Alum was recently revealed to have entered fight week seriously overweight, and after he recently broke his silence on this issue, claiming to be in a “suffering” situation.

In case you’re wondering what the weight limit is considered for a non-title fight to be legal in the UFC, it’s just one point over the official weight. For middleweight fighter Bo Nickal, it’s going to be 186 pounds, or else it will get deemed as a catchweight bout, something that Dana White isn’t a fan of, or his fight against De Ridder could simply get scrapped. However, Nickal was a whopping 37 pounds over the weight limit (222.6 lbs) as he stepped on the weighing scale in a video he uploaded during the fight week.

During a recent interview with ‘SHAK MMA’, the multiple-time former NCAA Division I champion revealed that he wanted to get bigger as a middleweight fighter for his next fight. As we all know, De Ridder has competed in higher weight classes before his venture into the UFC, and might be walking around heavier than Nickal. Moreover, the Dutchman was 212 pounds on UFC 311 fight night, which is a 17 percent gain. But this similar plan could backfire as Nickal has now revealed his struggles with cutting down to 185 pounds.

“A big portion of this fight camp for me has been bulking up. You know, I wanted to get a little bit bigger for the weight… Might have went a little too far with it… Now I’m suffering a little bit [from] the consequences of that,” Bo Nickal stated. But guess what? Nickal claimed it’s all ” part of the job” and he’s determined to make weight when the weigh-in day arrives, while reminding us that he’s never pulled out of any contest for failing to meet the weight limit in his athletic career.

“So, it’s part of the weight-cut process and I’ve never missed weight in my life since I’ve been five years old wrestling. I’ve weighed in hundreds of times,” Bo Nickal added. “So, I feel confident I’ll be able to get it done. It might stress people out a little bit, but it’s part of the job for me.”

While Nickal attempts to meet the weight requirements, his upcoming opponent recently revealed that he had other plans before getting offered a fight against the former NCAA champ. Here’s what he had to say about that part.

Reinier De Ridder wanted a quick turnaround before he got the fight against Bo Nickal

The Dutchman is an experienced fighter, more than Bo Nickal, who’s only had seven professional fights so far, and was looking to make his way up the middleweight division ever since his win over Kevin Holland at UFC 311. He wasn’t willing to wait for it and wanted to fight rather quickly. But when the UFC came to him with a fight against Bo Nickal, he decided to do what the promotion wanted him to do.

“So I was supposed to maybe even fight a week later, after the last LA fight, but it didn’t come to fruition, unfortunately. Then, a couple weeks later, they called me about the Bo [Nickal] fight,” Reinier de Ridder told UFC.com. ‘RDR’ wasn’t expecting to fight Bo Nickal, but after he received the offer, he imagined this fight to be a grappler vs. grappler contest, which was appealing to him.

“I was surprised, because I didn’t really expect that one. But I think style-wise, it’s a very cool matchup to see,” De Ridder added. “Our grappling style clash will be very cool. And he’s maybe not a top-five talent yet, but he’s definitely a top-five name. So yeah, I’m very happy with the matchup.” What do you think?

Well, Reinier De Ridder may be excited about fighting Bo Nickal, but the question now remains whether the prospect can make it to the fight with a massive weight cut to make. Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.