Athletes
Tyson Nam Basking In The Moment
After A 19-Month Layoff, Nam Returns To The Octagon At UFC Fight Night: Vera vs Cruz, Taking On Flyweight Challenger Ode' Osbourne
Tyson Nam is alive.
It’s a feeling the Hawaiian flyweight hasn’t experienced for a long time, not since he stepped into the Octagon with Matt Schnell and went three rounds before losing a split decision.
After that, the next 19 months were a blur; not a fast blur, but just blurry, a fog over him as he dealt with the first job-related surgery of his career and a pair of fight cancellations before finally getting Saturday’s matchup with Ode’ Osbourne in San Diego.
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Listen to him talk about what he missed in his time away, and you wonder how anyone could feel that way about anything.
“I miss the feeling,” he said. “I miss the anxiety, I miss the nervousness, the depression, all of that.”
Wow. But then he explains further.
“In combative sports, we experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows and when we're watching it from the outside, we'll take either feeling,” Nam said. “Just being in the middle of it is when I actually feel alive. And for these past months, I haven't felt alive. Not until now.”
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Now he's a day away from a fistfight, a dangerous one against a dangerous foe, but for the 38-year-old, those are the only ones to have. And when he had that taken away from him during a training session with a partner that wasn’t careful, he didn’t know whether that was going to be forever.
“Going hard was never the problem,” Nam said. “It was things that you shouldn't do as a training partner that happen, especially when you're supposed to be a trustworthy training partner. So that's the only thing that gets me. Going hard has never been a problem. I still go hard on other people and people still go hard on me, and I always match their energy, so that's never the problem.”
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Eventually, though, Nam healed up, got the green light to return to training, and it was back to work. Unfortunately, a pair of fights with Tagir Ulanbekov never came off, but when the UFC presented him with Osbourne’s name, he was all-in. In fact, if the name on the contract read Ngannou, he would have probably still signed.
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“Any fight in the UFC is a good thing,” Nam said. “And especially coming back from an injury - nobody ever comes back better - so they gave me one name and I had one name on top of my mind. After we're done with that, then we'll see what's in the cards for the rest of my career.”
Here’s guessing there will be more fights for someone who has been doing it longer than most.
“I started this when it wasn't cool,” he laughs. “We just fought for fun on a given Saturday.”
Saturday’s a day away.
UFC Fight Night: Vera vs Cruz took place live from Pechanga Arena in San Diego, California on August 13, 2022. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive all the action on UFC Fight Pass!
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