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Events · UFC 298: Volkanovski vs. Topuria · Rinya Nakamura vs Carlos Vera
From the tape · 17 Feb 2024

Rinya Nakamura vs Carlos Vera

UFC 298: Volkanovski vs. Topuria · Anaheim, California, USA
Result

Rinya Nakamura beat Carlos Vera

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
BantamweightMain cardReferee · Jonathan Romero

We published no prediction for this bout. Everything on this page is the official record and the tape it was fought on — the result, the round-by-round counts, the judges’ cards where they exist and the sportsbook line where one was published. Our graded calls start in 2026 and live on the public record.

Red corner RinyaNakamura“Hybred”American Top Team · Saitama
VSOn the tape
CV
Blue corner CarlosVera“Pequeno”50-50 BJJ · Manta, Manabi
Bantamweight3 rounds17 Feb 2024
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
  • Carries 75 points more takedown defence than Vera.
10-1
Record
12-4
−8 yr28
Age
36
+1″5' 7"
Height
5' 6"
68″
Reach
+1″69″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
American Top Team
Gym
50-50 BJJ
Saitama
From
Manta, Manabi
Vitals, record, nickname and camp come from the public UFC fighter register and are current, not a snapshot of fight night. UFC bouts, finish rate and every storyline line are counted off the official UFC fight record. A tick marks the side holding the raw edge in that row — longer reach, taller, younger, more bouts, a higher finish rate. It is a fact about the tape, not a prediction, and rows with no clean comparison (record, stance, gym, hometown) carry no tick at all. Any row we cannot fill on both sides is left out rather than half-drawn. Streaks, bout counts and finish rates are as they stood going into this fight — this bout and everything after it is excluded from the count.

Round by round

Every round the fight went, shaded by where the significant strikes actually landed — the takedowns, control time and knockdowns beside them, and how the three judges scored that round.

UFCStats · per round

3 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action
Rinya Nakamura16 sig landed
HEAD69%11 of 26BODY25%4 of 4LEGS6%1 of 1
Carlos Vera6 sig landed
HEAD67%4 of 6BODY0%0 landedLEGS33%2 of 2
16 of 31
Sig.
strikes
6 of 8
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:20
Control
0:00
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 13
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 3
Judges · this round · Nakamura firstRaphael Davis10–9Chris Leben10–9Ron McCarthy10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Rinya Nakamura12 sig landed
HEAD75%9 of 15BODY17%2 of 2LEGS8%1 of 1
Carlos Vera2 sig landed
HEAD50%1 of 5BODY50%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
12 of 18
Sig.
strikes
2 of 6
2 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:34
Control
0:00
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 10
Where it
happened
Distance 1Clinch 0Ground 1
Judges · this round · Nakamura firstRaphael Davis10–9Chris Leben10–9Ron McCarthy10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Rinya Nakamura10 sig landed
HEAD100%10 of 20BODY0%0 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
Carlos Vera4 sig landed
HEAD50%2 of 8BODY0%0 of 1LEGS50%2 of 2
10 of 21
Sig.
strikes
4 of 11
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:09
Control
0:00
Distance 2Clinch 1Ground 7
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 1Ground 1
Judges · this round · Nakamura firstRaphael Davis10–9Chris Leben10–9Ron McCarthy10–9

Significant strikes, takedowns, control time, knockdowns and submission attempts exactly as UFCStats recorded them for this bout, round by round. Zone percentages are that round’s landed head, body and leg counts over their own total — raw arithmetic, nothing modelled or smoothed. A round in which a fighter landed nothing shades empty and reads zero; it is never filled in from the round before.

The cards, totalled

The judges’ final totals, the media’s cards beside them, and how these judges usually score. Their round-by-round 10–9s are with the rounds above.

Official card

Unanimous Decision

Referee · Jonathan Romero
Rinya NakamuraCarlos Vera
Official totals — Rinya Nakamura first
JudgeTotal
Raphael Davis30–27
Chris Leben30–27
Ron McCarthy2.0 avg spread · 41% wide30–27

Each judge’s round-by-round scores sit with the round they belong to, in the round-by-round section above — switch a round there and the three cards for it change with the stats.

Media cards — 15 scored, Rinya Nakamura first · unofficial

Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–27
Scott Fontana New York Post30–27
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com30–27
Dan Levi Best Fight Picks30–27
Bloody Elbow.com30–27
Chris De Santiago Sports Illustrated30–27
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com30–27
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com30–27
Steve Duncan mma.uno30–27
John Pollock POST Wrestling30–27
Daniel Yanofsky The Sporting News30–27
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com30–27
Ben Duffy Sherdog.com30–27
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com30–27
MM AJunkie.com30–27

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Nakamura · 85%30-26 Nakamura · 9%30-28 Nakamura · 2%30-28 Vera · 2%29-28 Vera · 2%

46 fan cards submitted to MMA Decisions.

Official cards come from the UFCStats fight record and MMA Decisions. Media cards and the fan vote are MMA Decisions’ own collection and are not official. Judge tendency figures are that judge’s whole recorded history, not this bout — they are context for how a card was scored, never a claim that it was scored wrongly.

Takedowns

Takedowns

The level change — head to head

Career UFC takedown rates. Red corner left, blue corner right.

Rinya Nakamura

2.58takedowns / 15 min
2.58 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.00 / 15m
3.19 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
n/a
81%
ACCURACY
n/a
1.40 / 15m
SUB ATT
1.60 / 15m

Carlos Vera

0.00takedowns / 15 min

Career UFC takedown rates exactly as UFCStats publishes them: takedowns landed per 15 minutes, completion rate, submission attempts per 15 minutes, and the share of takedowns tried on them that they stuffed. Attempts per 15 is the one derived figure — landed ÷ completion rate — and it is omitted wherever either input is missing. UFCStats writes 0% where no attempt was recorded at all, so a percentage of exactly zero reads “n/a” here rather than as a measured rate. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average. Rate bars run to the population’s 95th percentile (5.45 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Bantamweight

The market story

Where the price started and where it finished — the sportsbook consensus, with the vig removed. We captured no price series for this bout, so there is no chart to draw.

Rinya Nakamura↑ +5.1pp
open 84.0%close 89.1%
Carlos Vera↓ −5.1pp
open 16.0%close 10.9%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Rinya Nakamura opened at 84.0% and closed at 89.1% (+5.1pp), with Carlos Vera moving the other way by the same amount — the two are one de-vigged pair, so they always sum to 100%. There is no line between those two points because nobody recorded one: we hold the open and the close for this bout, not the days in between.

Show the numbers
CornerOpen (US)Close (US)Open %Close %Move
Rinya Nakamura-700-140584.0%89.1%+5.1pp
Carlos Vera50077716.0%10.9%−5.1pp
Opening and closing moneylines from BestFightOdds (data/refs/bfo_fighter_moneylines.csv), one row per fighter per bout, de-vigged pairwise so the two corners sum to 100% · dated 2024-02-18 on the odds record (1d from the card date; the nearest day inside a two-day window is used, never a guess) · scraped 2026-06-10. No price series was captured for this bout, so no line is drawn between the two points.
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