JRE MMA Show #151 with Bo Nickal

SPEAKER_2 (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan (0:14)

How are you?

I was gonna ask you, we were just looking at that photo of Karelin and talking about the Soviet program, the doping program. Did you ever see that movie Icarus?

Bo Nickal (0:25)

Yeah, I did watch that.

Crazy, I thought it was just insane, too, how it didn't even really start off the way that it ended. He wasn't even really trying to figure all this stuff out, he just fell into it.

Joe Rogan (0:37)

Yeah, total dumb luck.

Bo Nickal (0:39)

Yeah, but since I wrestled my whole life and stuff and paid attention to the international scene, it's not really a secret. Everybody kinda knows, right? That's the first legitimate, real proof that somebody's kinda come out with, but everybody kinda knew that's what's going on.

Joe Rogan (0:57)

But that was so insane, though, that they had a hole in the wall where they were handing through the dirty urine and getting back clean urine and then submitting that. And if it wasn't for microanalysis of the jars, then they realized, oh, the Soviets had figured out, well, it wasn't the Soviets, it was the Russians, had figured out some way to open up these unopenable jars because they had scratched them in little places.

Bo Nickal (1:25)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they freaking, they want to win really bad. And it's like for them too, it's a different level. Like the guys that won that were very successful, maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, those guys are like big government positions and stuff. Like in the US, you win the Olympics in wrestling, you win like a quarter million bucks and it's a big deal for like a month and then you kind of move on. But over there, it's like, you're kind of set for life.

So it's like, yeah, it's like a different, it's a completely different kind of motivation, I think.

Joe Rogan (1:56)

Yeah, what is it like competing when you know that there's like state sponsored programs that are involved in these other countries doping up their athletes?

Bo Nickal (2:05)

It's pretty weird, you know? I think that, because like I said, I kind of grew up, you grow up with the understanding of it knowing like this is kind of the way it works.

You just, you're ready for it, you're prepared, you understand. But, and I'm sure I've competed against a lot of guys that were doping and doing stuff, but the one experience that I had that was like really kind of prominent in my mind, so I wrestled this dude, I wrestled a tournament in Rome, this was a few years ago, and I was trying to go up from, I was in between weights, so my weight was 86 kilos or 97 kilos, and I was kind of having a little trouble with my lower back, so I was like, I don't wanna cut, I just wanna like get bigger. And so I came in, and I was weighing like 210, which the weight class is 213, 97 kilos. And I was like, I'll be fine, I'll be good.

And I rolled up to this second round match, and I was wrestling this Iranian dude.

And my coaches weren't there with me, so I had like some different coaches, and they didn't really warn me who this dude was. I had wrestled the number one Iranian guy a few months earlier, and I tech followed him, like I killed him. So I was like, I'm gonna smash or steal, I don't even, I don't give a crap. This dude comes out, he's like two inches taller than me, freaking jacked as hell, and does a forward roll and like squat jump, and his feet are like over my head, and I'm like, what the hell is going on here? And we're just this random tournament in Rome, and I'm wrestling some dude that I don't even know, and he killed me. It's the only time I've ever wrestled a match where I really got whipped. Like he single-leg, took me down, gut-wrench me, and he came down from probably like 235, like he was way bigger than me.

And then I got off the mat, and I was like, what the just happened? And then the coach was like, oh yeah, this guy was a world silver medalist, world bronze medalist like five years ago, but the last five years, he got banned, he got popped. And so he hadn't competed in five years. He'd just been frigging training and juiced. And then he actually, the next round, he beat my teammate, Kyle Snyder, who was Olympic gold medalist the exact same way, like smoked us both. And I was like, what the hell is going on here? So then world championship that year comes along, and now they're getting tested, and he like went and 1