On Saturday, most fight fans will tune in to see the heavyweight title fight between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez.
Those that do take a look at the undercard might notice this fight only because both combatants have equally difficult names to spell.
Other than the complexity of their last names, both Yamamoto and Uyenoyama have very few similarities.
Yamamoto usually knocks out his opponents and Uyenoyama mixes it up between submission wins and decision victories.
Yamamoto is 34 and Uyenoyama is 32.
Yamamoto has 23 fights to his name and Uyenoyama has nine to his.
And Yamamoto has won against top name competition. Uyenoyama hasn’t.
Yamamoto has beaten Jeff Curran, Ranyi Yahya, Caol Uno, Genki Sudo and Bibiano Fernandes. Other than the fights with Curran and Fernandes, each one has been by knockout.
He has also lost three of his four last fights. Yamamoto has been on a slump and there is a good chance that he is finally starting to age. It may just be that the “kid” is starting to turn into an old man.
With that said, Uyenoyama has lost two of his last four.
One of those losses was to Hideo Tokoro, a top Japanese fighter, but the other was to a relative unknown.
Uyenoyama has a gap of five years between his first professional fight and his second. He also hasn’t fought since September of last year.
Yamamoto’s last fight was at UFC 126 in February.
Yamamoto may be in a slump, but he is the more active fighter who has already been to the biggest stage and fought some of the best names. He has also been a fighter much longer if Uyenoyama’s five-year absence is taken into account.
For all intensive purposes, this seems to be a rebuilding fight for Yamamoto. It might be that the UFC wants to give him a win so they don’t have to cut him and can use him at UFC 144 when they return to Japan.
As mentioned above, Yamamoto might still lose. He has been in enough fights and has been on the wrong side of a decision as of late. It might just be that he doesn’t have anything left.
However, as Uyenoyama doesn’t seem to be in his league, this is his fight to lose.
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