Did Yojiro Uetake Obata ever lose a match?

[Kforcer]

2-time Olympic champ, unbeaten in 3 years of NCAA wrestling for Oklahoma and I've heard from many that he was "unchallenged" in his collegiate career. But, when hearing about his international accolades, I never hear him referred to as "undefeated", which is what his fellow Olympian, Osamu Watanabe, was famed for being.

Was there somewhere out there that beat him in international competition?

 

[kenban judan]

off of here

it reads

...After his sophomore year of competition in 1964, returned to Japan to win the Olympic gold medal in his home city of Tokyo. Four years later in Mexico City, became the first Japanese wrestler to win two championships in the Olympic Games. While preparing for his second Olympic crown, spent two years as an assistant coach at OSU, then returned home to become Japan's national freestyle coach. Guided his country's wrestlers into the
1972 Olympics at Munich and the 1976 Games at Montreal.

i am going to guess that where it reads "While preparing for his second Olympic crown, spent two years as an assistant coach at OSU" he took a loss somewhere, unless he trained but didn't compete -- they would've mentioned something (?)

 

[kenban judan]

ahah! from this thread

ctaggie
05-31-2007, 04:06 PM
LL (that's Legalegal) and I briefly talked about him late in the wrestling season ... didn't say all that much.

For anyone interested, he's generally considered our greatest wrestler ever ... 3 time NCAA champ (64-66) ... 2-time gold in Olympics (he won it the first time after his soph season) ... never lost (58-0 NCAA record) ... never really had a challenge (although Fujita, a later Cowboy wrestler ... and great one as well ... apparently took him 1 out of 3 in the 68 Japan Olympic trials ... as the story goes).

My favorite story about Yojo (his nickname). Last match of career ... NCAA finals ... he's gonna win ... riding his opponent in second period ... ref stops match and warns Yojo for stalling. Now Yojo wasn't a pinner ... could have been but rather wanted to get a full workout in each match so almost never went for fall. Anyway, that warning pissed him off. So he pins the guy 30 seconds later! That's how good he was ... and 30 seconds is not an exaggeration. Opponent looked at ref and said ... "Next time, don't do me any favors!"

He's still around ... living in Japan. Made to to the 2005 NCAA tournament in St. Louis, where he was honored along with some other all-time greats.

oh, and sure, dude, no problem, anytime man!

 

[Kforcer]

Found this thread trying to look up Uetake footage.

Thanks Kenban Judan; my bad for not thanking you before!