For a glass, UFC des Moines Fight against Reiner de Ridder ‘means more than just a rating’

Outside of Pennsylvania or, perhaps, Romania, the UFC could not place a glass on the best card than its UFC Fight Night in de -Moon. When you think about io, you think about things like corn, defenders and corn fighters built as defenders. Nick has ears to fit.

Perhaps this is from the Miletich combat systems on the same day that were in the Middle West in Bettentorf, who created so many UFC early champions. But there is something that shouts about the old MMA school about Aiove, as it is like a return for men who ate nails.

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“I love it here,” said Nikal this week from the so-called Hartford of the West. “These are my people. These are people similar to me, cut out of the same fabric. I think that in the Middle West the struggle is only part of the culture. This is part of your blood. “

Nikal, of course, is a man from Penn State. He won there three national titles and adoration of the struggle of Gentry. During his career in college, he fixed many guys, including a lot of (and c) the state of Iowa. Poor Sammy Brooks from Iowa still cannot believe how quickly his shoulder blades rejected his will back in 2017, when Nikal fixed him in 38 seconds in Aims.

This is what makes Nikal’s return to Aiova in order to take the Dutch Rainer de Ridder, a kind of return home for a related spirit. He lives a lot in the old ways to earn his stripes through blood, sweat and tears, because for him there is nothing cliche in creating gravel in the intestines.

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“Iowo is similar to Pennsylvania where you grow, you are struggling in childhood, your dad did this, your uncle did it, your grandfather did this, and this is a family thing,” he says. “This is just part of the culture. I like it. I think that people are here, they appreciate the same thing as me. Hard work, discipline, family values ​​and really a desire for a goal.

“So this is that I identify myself with them, and I felt that he was walking around grocery stores or in the city center. I get great support and great love. ”

What do we know about Bo? It is formulated. The environment is polished. In short, a ready -made professional. Nikal was in the spotlight for a decade, and what he does when light comes, physically bends people to his image of thinking. He competed thousands of times. It has weight more efficiently and efficiently than any yogi in the Himalayas. He met with hardships and treated him with severe zeal, as if he was looking forward to this.

And come on Saturday evening, Nikal will see how far he advanced in his evolution in MMA. He fought six times in the UFC for 26 months, including twice in a series of applicants, where he needed less than two minutes to declare himself ready.

Since then, expectations have been ranging from high to nonsense, since some people believed that he was ready for rivalry by the time he made up the 9-K-1 lost Jamie Pickett in his UFC debut of 2023. His victories over Val Woodburn and Cody Brandge felt casually in the great scheme of things, like some warm bodies that he could throw in the way to the top of the middle weight.

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How was its struggle roots transferred into a cage? In every battle, he was a huge favorite. Including in his last battle with Paul Craig, who won a moral victory, becoming the first fighter of MMA, who transferred not intensity to the cards. Not that the indicators were close. Nikal won 30-27 through a heap, which means that he is still waiting for his first big test.

Could this happen against de Ridder, a former two -story owner of the championship title, which starts with a score of 2: 0 in UFC? You are asking Nickal, and this is like the fact that he is a sortone in the high school of Allen in Texas, right on the verge of victory in his first state title.

He lights up because he cannot wait to find out.

“I asked for a match, I think he is a great fighter,” he says. “This is a real test for me, and I think that this is why I am doing what I am doing, I want to test. I do not train as zealously as I am, and sacrifice as much as I am, and pass all the little things that I go through, just to defeat my light guys.

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“I want to meet the best guys. And that’s why I think that this fight is exciting in that I think that, despite the fact that I am not busy, and he is No. 13, any of us can easily become the five best in the division and defeat many best guys. ” For me, this battle means more than just a rating and more than just a number. This is a big fight for me. “

Since Nikal entered his career as a mixed master of martial arts, every step feels like a scene in a video game. How far can he go? Does he have a complete arsenal to become a champion? Time will tell, but he is a masochist when it comes to preparation. Managing the most famous training sites in Pennsylvania since Muhammad Ali on the lake deer, he opened the Att Happy Valley in 2022 as a kind of personal theater of pain. Actors of the characters he brings to make his life in hell in the pleasant gap, has a way to make his real opposition feel generally less frightening.

The idea is similar to what they did on Miletich’s back that day. Spend your days by breaking your ego on the stilettos so that the evening of the battle looks like a light walk.

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“I deal with the guys, such as (PFL) Johnny Eblen, (five-time university national champion) Carter Stakchchi, just an incredible talent for the struggle-Yaroslav Amosov too,” he says. “There are many guys with whom I can work with this, it really pushes me, and this is part of what I love in sports. I love to push myself every day and try to break myself, and then slowly impose. ”

In other words, Nickal is more ivoy than Iowa herself. And if he defeated de Ridder on Saturday evening in his house away from the house, there may be even more return home on the horizon.

There is a chance to fight that his next battle can be the main place in the center of Brise Jordan in the State College.

“We are going to do it,” he says. “I already had conversations with the UFC. I had negotiations with Penn State and Bryce Jordan, and I think that you can get about 17,000 people with how the UFC does it. We are going to fold it to the edges, fill it with filled people, and this will be an unrealistic event. We are going to do it.

“I would like to see it later this year. But this is TBD. There are many moving parts, so we will see. But at some moment it will happen. ”