Nakamura to debut vs Ollie Schmitt at UFN 293 after twice breaking left hand

Keiichiro Nakamura's UFC debut comes with a hand that has not had a normal camp. He fights Ollie Schmitt at UFN 293 at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas, and by his own account he will not be able to hit mitts until fight week.

The injury goes back to his biggest win. Nakamura took the Road to UFC featherweight tournament on Feb. 1 by beating Sebastian Szalay in the final, which earned him the contract, and he broke his left fist in that fight. When he resumed sparring in August, the bone broke again.

He describes the setback as a lesson in holding back. In an interview in Fight&Life #117, published Oct. 23, and in further comments to MMAPLANET, he said fighters often push harder when they are struggling because hard training brings relief. He said he did that, and he got hurt. He now treats stepping back and facing his situation as the tougher kind of training.

That is where the tea ceremony comes in. Nakamura says it trains him to control himself and read the space around him, and that the practice has improved his movement. "It is a still state, the opposite of fighting, where you control yourself and grasp the space," he said, in translation. He says he has put in a great deal of work on the pulling-back half of the balance between pushing and holding, even if his preparation for the sport itself may not be complete.

Nakamura also spoke about a difficult stretch away from the gym. He said his parents divorced around the start of May and that he took on clearing out his family home. He said it brought him emptiness at first, then a sense that it was ultimately good for him, and that his relationship with his brothers and parents is better now.

What to watch is how the hand holds up with so little striking work before the fight, and how a fighter who says he does not know how he will perform handles his first UFC walk.