Olivier Coste, James Nakashima (©ONE Championship)

Training out of MMA Lab in Glendale, Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, James Nakashima, 32, will challenge ONE Championship’s reigning welterweight world champion Kiamrian “Brazen” Abbasov, 26, of Kyrgyzstan at “ONE: Inside the Matrix 2.” The American challenger is an undefeated MMA fighter with 12 wins and 0 loss.

Featuring five MMA matches, “ONE: Inside the Matrix 2” will take place at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore on November 6, 2020. The title bout between Abbasov and Nakashima is the main event of the evening.

This is Abbasov’s first title defense as the reigning ONE Welterweight World Champion. He earned the belt on October 25, 2019 at “ONE: Dawn of Valor” at the Istora Gelora Bung Karno in Jakarta, Indonesia where he defeated then champion Zebaztian “The Bandit” Kadestam, 30, of Sweden via unanimous decision.

Winning at “ONE: Dawn of Valor” improved the professional MMA record of Abbasov to 22 wins and 4 losses. He has been competing in ONE Championship since 2018.

Nakashima also joined ONE Championship in 2018. Before joining the Singapore-based martial arts promotion, he competed in Resurrection Fighting Alliance, Aggression Session MMA and Legacy Fighting Alliance.

Competing professionally since 2015, Nakashima was the LFA Welterweight Champion and an American National Wrestling Champion. He is not of Japanese descent but his Caucasian father was adopted by Japanese parents.

Born on October 26, 1988, Nakashima was born and raised in Dwight, a small village in Illinois, USA. His father owned a local restaurant while his mother worked as a corrections officer at a maximum security women’s prison.

The MMA Lab product attended the University of Nebraska. He competed as a wrestler but still managed to do well academically.

When Nakashima made his ONE Championship debut at “ONE: Conquest of Champions” at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines on November 23, 2018, he defeated Raimond Magomedaliev, 30, of Russia via unanimous decision. In the same venue, Nakashima knocked out Luis “Sapo” Santos, 39, of Brazil at “ONE: Roots of Honor” on April 12, 2019.

“ONE: Inside the Matrix 2” marks Nakashima’s fourth ONE Championship bout. In his most recent fight, which was at the SM Mall of Asia Arena on August 2, 2019, he defeated Yushin “Thunder” Okami, 39, of Japan via unanimous decision.