Bo Nickal reiterates he is in no rush to climb to the top.

Nickal (6-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) faces his most notable name to date when he takes on Paul Craig (17-8-1 MMA, 9-8-1 UFC) in a middleweight bout at UFC 309 Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden.

Although Nickal is a highly touted prospect, he isn’t looking to be fast tracked. He has an idea of how his path to the UFC title will look like.

“This is a good step up with Paul Craig,” Nickal said on his YouTube channel. “So, take care of business and then I want to (fight) two more guys that are unranked. Then fight a ranked guy.

“So at that point, I’ll be 7-0, 8-0, 9-0, fight a ranked guy, 10-0. 11-0, probably fight a top-five guy, and then fight for the belt around 12-0. That’s what I’m planning on right now. We’ll see, but definitely zoom focused on this next fight.”

If he can get through Craig, Nickal hopes to draw bigger names moving forward.

“I’m just going to smash this guy, and then I want to get exciting fights now,” Nickal said. “I feel like I’ve fought enough guys that have kind of not really been very dangerous to me. I haven’t even been hit really in a real fight yet.

“So I want to start fighting better guys for sure. Once I get a ranked fight, I think I’m only going to have to fight two or three before the belt. At that point, it’s like straight to it.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 309.

After securing the title with a thumping win over their nearest rivals on the pitch, Cliftonville lifted the trophy at the home of their neighbours.

Crusaders gave a guard of honour as Kelsie Burrows led Cliftonville out at Seaview, and, despite the celebrations that followed the win over Glentoran, they did not look like a team with a hangover on the pitch.

They dominated the majority of possession in the early stages, and Marissa Callaghan clipped the top of the crossbar with a long-range effort.

The Northern Ireland midfielder then hammered the crossbar with a header from Toni-Leigh Finnegan’s cross.

The pressure continued to build as Fi Morgan, Caitlin McGuinness and Carla Devine all saw chances slip away.

Callaghan was denied the opener by the offside flag as she chipped the ball into the bottom corner, and Devine fired over late in the half as the teams went in level.

After Callaghan poked an effort wide after the restart, the deserved winner came in the 52nd minute when Maxwell’s cross drifted into the bottom corner to give the visitors a lead they would not relinquish.

Finnegan fired over as the Reds looked for a second, and substitute Kirsty McGuinness saw an effort parried away by Harvey-Clifford.

The Crues had a huge chance to level the game with 20 minutes to play when Rebecca Mann raced through on goal but the substitute hooked her effort wide.

McGuinness forced Harvey-Clifford into a superb diving save, and further chances fell to Caitlin McGuinness, who hit over from Katie Markey’s cross, and Maxwell, who fired narrowly wide.

The game fizzled out in the closing stages, with the Reds perhaps having one eye on Saturday’s cup final but when the final whistle blew, the Cliftonville bench ran onto the pitch to celebrate with their team-mates.

Darren Till certainly knows how to pick his social media targets.

Undefeated UFC middleweight Bo Nickal is the latest fighter to draw Till’s ire, with the former welterweight contender taking a shot at Nickal on Thursday.

In post on Twitter responding to Nickal outlining his future plans on his YouTube channel, Till wrote, “The ginger ninja doesn’t even fight. Talks more than me and I talk a lot.”

The timing of Till’s comments are somewhat strange given that Nickal is set for his second appearance of 2024 when he fights Paul Craig at UFC 309 on Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden in New York. A three-time NCAA Division-I wrestling champion who made his pro MMA debut in 2022, Nickal has so far lived up to his enormous hype, going 6-0 and finishing all but one of his opponents in the first round.

However, Till isn’t impressed with the quality of competition nor does he feel that Nickal passes the eye test.

“He even shit talks me and hasn’t beat an opponent who’s record is a winning one,” Till wrote.

There is some truth to Till’s statement. All of Nickal’s UFC opponents came into the cage with winning pro records, but none of them were over the .500 mark inside the octagon.

Even when Till went on to compliment Nickal, he made sure to throw in a few nasty digs.

“Yes, his wrestling is good but his striking is appalling and his cooking videos make me want to stab myself to death,” Till wrote.

It’s unclear what Till’s angle is here as he is not currently competing in MMA. Till previously fought for the UFC welterweight title against Tyron Woodley at UFC 228, where he was submitted by Woodley in Round 2. He parted ways with the UFC in February 2023.

Currently, Till is dabbling in the world of boxing. He made a successful debut this past July with a controversial win over Mohammad Mutie, and was supposed to fight veteran Julio César Chávez Jr. on July 20 on the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson card, but that event was postponed to Nov. 15. Till’s bout was not re-booked.

Check out Nickal’s podcast below.

UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier dismisses PFL and other organizations when it comes to their ability to build stars.

A former two-division UFC champion, Cormier believes the octagon is the only stage where a fighter can reach superstardom. The likes of Ben Askren, Michael Chandler, Michael Page, and most recently Kayla Harrison were able to catapult their popularity to the next level after signing with the UFC.

“The NBA does not exist without the best players in the world,” Cormier said on his “Funky and the Champ” show with Ben Askren. “There are 100 leagues around the world, but they never can hold a candle to what the NBA is, so the best come and play here. There’s one place to fight, one place, because guess what? There’s only one place that honestly – not even trying to be a UFC guy, there’s one where you reach superstardom.

“There’s one place where you fight the best in the world, where you maximize your visibility and earnings inside the octagon and outside the octagon. It’s the UFC. Every other organization tries and then eventually it starts to falter. I don’t understand why. The only one who has found success is Scott Coker. He’s the only guy who has found sustained success outside the UFC.”

Harrison is 2-0 in the UFC since parting ways with PFL. Founder Donn Davis accused Harrison of running away from big fights with Cris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco, and Cormier thinks it’s an attempt from the PFL to use the UFC to promote their own fighters.

“Every year the gap widens, and not even a little bit. It widens by double,” Cormier said. “Every time the PFL uses that Kayla Harrison loss to promote someone on another card, that just tells you that they’re just throwing sh*t at the wall, hoping something sticks.”

Interim boss Lee Carsley will not change his attacking approach when England face Finland on Sunday despite the surprise defeat by Greece that dented his chances of landing the role permanently.

England had enjoyed an encouraging start to their Nations League campaign under Carsley, with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Finland before Thursday’s setback at Wembley.

Carsley’s experiment in fielding five attackers without an out-and-out striker backfired as Greece ran out 2-1 winners.

England will look to bounce back in Helsinki this weekend and Carsley insisted “nothing changes” in terms of his attacking approach.

“The way I want my teams to play, I want us to attack and when we had the players we have available, I wanted to try something different,” said Carsley, who has been put in temporary charge until November while the Football Association seeks a permanent successor following Gareth Southgate’s departure.

“Hindsight is perfect because it never happened.

“It wouldn’t stop me trying something different in the future because I have done OK being like this.

“I had 17, 18, 19 years as a player being defensive and just sitting in there and playing on the counter-attack.

“That is definitely not how I want to coach. Nothing changes in that respect.”

Conor McGregor got in on the action following a heated BKFC Spain face-off.

Lightweights Franco Tenaglia and Tony Soto clash in the main event of Saturday’s BKFC event in Marbella, Spain, with a vacant title on the line, but it’s McGregor who stole the headlines Friday. As Tenaglia and Soto nearly came to blows onstage at the ceremonial weigh-ins, “The Notorious” stepped in to break up the potential brawl.

Watch video of the incident below.

McGregor, the former two-division UFC champion who became part-owner of BKFC this past April, looked to be having the time of his life as he inserted himself in between the scrapping fighters, helping to quickly defuse the situation.

Seeing gold on the table, McGregor couldn’t help but raise the lightweight title over his head, cackling gleefully as he showed it off to those in attendance.

Saturday’s BKFC event airs live on DAZN from Marbella Arena in Marbella, Spain. Two other title fights are set to take place, with 165-pound champion Austin Trout defending against Rico Franco, and 175-pound champion David Mundell fighting Danny Christie.

Sidelined since July 2021, McGregor awaits his next UFC booking after an injury forced him to withdraw from a grudge match against Michael Chandler scheduled for UFC this past June.