Student makes major departure with MMA

Senior Riccardo Modesti, an Italian exchange student from Tuscania, Italy, started training for Mixed Martial Arts in Papillion this fall. This training for MMA isn’t the first time Modesti dipped his toes into martial arts; Modesti started karate classes when he was 6 and continued until he was 11.

“When I was younger, I did for six years karate. …I just stopped because … they didn’t let us fight a lot, so I got bored and I decided to stop,” Modesti said.

Tuscania did not have a gym that hosted MMA but Modesti always wanted to join.

“When I was in middle school … I always watched fights. But I lived in a very small city in Italy, so we didn’t have many gyms … If I found a gym near my city, I would start,” Modesti said.

When Modesti started his exchange program at Papio South and came to Nebraska, he met and befriended senior Joshua Junge, who was training in MMA at Championship Fitness.

“When he told me he was doing MMA, I got crazy, because I couldn’t. My dream was to start the fight sport of boxing MMA. So I [asked] him if I could go to try some classes with him. I went, I loved,” Modesti said.

Modesti started training in September 2022. He would train at night from 6:15 to 9 p.m. His training would include cardio, strength and conditioning, kickboxing, JiuJitsu and other forms of martial arts. Modesti would try to train every day.

“[training] is optional, nobody tells us you gotta come here every day. But more class you do, it’s better for you. Because you cannot win a match with just three days a week [of training]. So we train every day,” Modesti said.

Modesti competes in Muay Thai because to compete in actual MMA in most states in America, including Nebraska, you must be 18 or older.

“Two weeks before [my first competition], I was pretty much scared,” Modesti said. “But then I started thinking I have a good progression [in skill]. And so I can handle it. But then the day … I was there … got into the ring, my mind turned off. I cannot even remember anything.”

Not being able to recall a fight after a match is a common occurrence during many combat sports, according to Modesti.

“Sometimes your mind really turns it off like, there are many fighters that they said, after the match … they gotta watch the match to see what they did, how they knock out the other one, because it’s really when you get there, your mind turns off,” he said.

The challenges of MMA aren’t just physical.

“It’s a lot of mental things. Like you can be 100% prepared, but if you don’t have the mind in that moment to be focused on there, don’t get scared. And then when you get the first punch, … your mind turns off,” Modesti said.

Though Modesti enjoys his experience here in Nebraska training he still misses his family. “

You know, after a year is kind of difficult sometimes because [I] don’t know anybody … So it’s kind of difficult… I miss family and friends and my city a lot… There are some difficult moments,” Modesti said, “but … we can go through that and enjoy our experience. That’s the best way.” B

ack at home his family is tentatively supportive.

“So my mom was not very happy … But they understood that is thing that I love to do. So yeah, they’re happy about this,” Modesti said, “sometimes my mind just gets a little riskier. But you know, is it not … normal. We get punched in the face. It’s not very nice.”