Yasutsune Uehara

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Yasutsune Uehara

Career Snapshot
Born	October 12, 1949
Died	-
Total Fights	32
Won	27
Lost	5
Drew	0
Knockouts	21
Titles Won	WBA World Junior lightweight

Yasutsune Uehara (上原康恒, born October 12, 1949) is a former boxer who was the WBA's world Jr. Lightweight champion. He was managed and promoted by Masaki Kanehira.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Professional boxing career
2 Record
3 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Professional boxing career

Yasutsune was born in Naha, Okinawa, Japan.Uehara began boxing as a professional on November 14, 1972, when he beat Sam Fraticelli by a fourth round knockout in Honolulu, Hawaii. As a matter of a fact, his first five fights as a professional were held in Honolulu. On his second fight, held on November 21 of the same year, he lost for the first time, being outpointed by Mat Yuzon over six rounds. After five fights in Honolulu, Uehara reestablished himself back in Japan, to build a fan base among his countrymen and women.

On December 12, he beat Sichiro Sato by a six round decision, in what signified the beginning of a nine fight winning streak, of which seven were knockouts. Among the fighters he defeated during that streak was Ricardo Arredondo, a Mexican world champion boxer, by a ten round decision, on November 29, 1973.

With a record of 10 wins and one loss, with eight knockouts, Uehara was relatively inexperienced when he traveled back to Honolulu for his first world title try, against WBA world Jr. Lightweight champion Ben Villaflor (another Asian who had been fighting in Hawaii. Villaflor retained the crown on August 24, 1974, defeating Uehara by a second round knockout. On November 30, Uehara returned to victory, defeating Freddy Martin over ten rounds on points back in Japan.

On July 21, 1971, Uehara won his first championship as a professional, the regional, Japanese Jr. Lightweight title, knocking out Susumu Okabe, in the first round at Tokyo. He defended that title a total of ten times, a considerable number for these types of championships (usually boxers do not defend regional titles more than five times). Among his defenses of the Japanese Jr. Lightweight title, there was a rematch with Okabe, knocked out in eight rounds on December 9 of '75 in round eight, once again, in Tokyo.

After his ten defenses, and a few non-title bouts, (all victories), were completed, Uehara was once again ranked as the number one challenger by the WBA in the Jr. Lightweight division. On August 2, 1980 Uehara participated of an undercard in Detroit that included Thomas Hearns' coronation as WBA world Welterweight champion by knocking out Jose Cuevas in round two. Having lost all five rounds in each of the three judges' (which included Stanley Christodoulou, referee of The Battle Of The Champions and Harold Leterman, currently an HBO Boxing commentator), Uehara connected with a punch in the sixth round that knocked defending world champion Samuel Serrano out, thus Uehara winning the WBA world Jr. Lightweight championship. Uehara's victory was qualified by Ring Magazine as the upset of the year for 1980.

Uhehara defended his title with success against perennial contender Leonel Hernandez of Venezuela, winning by a split fifteen round decision on November 20.

When he was rematched with Serrano on April 9, 1981 in Wakayama, however, he lost the title to the Puerto Rican by a fifteen round unanimous decision, after which Uehara retired. Unlike a large number of boxers, he was able to stay in retirement permanently.