“Bo Nickal Vibes”: UFC Redditors Ridicule Indian Fighter Who Claimed He Could Submit Khabib Nurmagomedov, Await His Return

Anshul Jubli certainly talked a big game before his third Octagon start earlier this year, but since the Indian’s staggering downfall at UFC 312, fans can’t help but compare him to the polarizing middleweight Bo Nickal.

Jubli, a product of Road to UFC, has so far competed thrice in the Octagon, becoming just the second Indian citizen to fight in the Dana White-led promotion after compatriot Bharat Khandare.

After debuting in impressive fashion with a second-round knockout win over Jeka Saragih in 2023, Jubli would since lose back-to-back return fights via blistering knockout losses.

Earlier this year, the Uttarakhand native had featured against Quillan Salkilld at UFC 312, suffering a now-viral 19-second stoppage loss.

Since then, he has come under fire for pre-fight comments, most notably, he boldly claimed he could submit former lightweight kingpin, Khabib Nurmagomedov, in a hypothetical showdown.

“No one should find any flaws in my game,” Jubli said. “There’s no difference between me and Khabib (Nurmagomedov). First round, I’ll survive. Then, in the second round, I can knock him out. I can submit Khabib, too — I can do anything to him,” the lightweight had noted.

And now on Reddit, a host of users have made a total mockery of Jubli and his comments, once more. “Seeing this live was hilarious, it was the first fight on the card at like 10:30am and he was knocked out in 20 seconds,” a user wrote.

Another compared him to middleweight prospect Bo Nickal, who, after boasting about challenging top contenders like Khamzat Chimaev for months, lost to Reinier de Ridder at UFC Des Moines last month. “Bo Nickal vibes,” they commented. 

However, boldly claiming that his knockout loss was a result of a premature stoppage, Jubli’s coach has jumped to the defense of his long-time student.

Team Jubli argues early stoppage in KO loss

Claiming he was intelligently defending himself, Jubli has argued he was even lining up a takedown attempt before the official waved the pairing off.

And attempting to make sense of the stoppage in action, his coach backed him up by referencing near-stoppages in fights between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard.

Also citing Pat Barry’s clash with Cheick Kongo, coach, Siddharth Singh made a damning argument.

“Definitely it was an early stoppage,” Singh said on his official Instagram account.

“Anshul got dropped. And he fell. But he came back with a single leg and he was wrestling up. Saturday, yes, he did make a mistake. He got caught with a punch. There’s so much hard work for a fighter that he wants to fight, he wants to show his skill set,” he added.

However, asserting that the past cannot be helped with, Singh promised,”it is what it is, Anshul will be back. He’s motivated, he’s hungry. I guarantee you that next time you watch Anshul, he’ll be better than ever before.” Only time will tell whether Jubli can live up to his coach’s expectations.