Atsushi Yamamoto

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Profile

Atsushi Yamamoto (born October 2, 1980) is a Japanese professional mixed martial artist fighting out of Team Krazy Bee.

He stands 5 ft. 6 in. tall and fights in the bantamweight division (135 lbs.).

Yamamoto is a veteran of Japanese organizations Shooto and Pancrase and currently fights as a featherweight (139 lbs.) for DREAM.

Pancrase

Atsushi Yamamoto made his professional mixed martial arts debut on February 6, 2004 at Pancrase: Brave 1. He faced and defeated Reiji Shimabukuro via unanimous decision after two rounds.

In his next outing, Yamamoto entered the Pancrase 2004 Neo Blood Tournament. He defeated Minoru Tsuiki in the opening round via TKO in the second round.

The semi finals and finals came on the same night on July 25, 2004 as Yamamoto defeated Yohei Tagami and Naoji Fujimoto to claim the tournament.

In December of 2004, Yamamoto suffered the first professional loss of his career as he was knocked out by a knee from Mike Shida at Pancrase: Brave 12.

Following a draw with Katsuya Toida in a smaller promotion, Yamamoto got back on track with a guillotine choke submission victory over Nobuyuki Kato at Pancrase: Spiral 5.

Yamamoto took a small break from Pancrase to head over to K-1 Hero's where he went 1-1 with a victory in a rematch over Katsuya Toida (decision) and a TKO loss to Korean, Jong Man Kim in November of 2005.

At Pancrase: Blow 3, Yamamoto returned and choked Takumi Murata unconscious in the second round.

Just under two months later, Yamamoto faced future WEC bantamweight title challenger, Yoshiro Maeda. In the second round, Yamamoto was knocked cold by a flying knee from Maeda.

At Pancrase: Blow 9, Yamamoto rebounded from the loss and pushed his record to 8-3-1 with a unanimous decision over Masaki Yanagisawa.

Shooto

Yamamoto picked up a majority decision victory over So Tazawa in a smaller promotion before leaving Pancrase for the Shooto organization.

In his Shooto debut, Yamamoto faced another future WEC bantamweight challenger in Takeya Mizugaki. He fared better this time around as he picked up a unanimous decision victory over the tough Mizugaki.

Three months later in May of 2007, Yamamoto suffered another loss. He was defeated by Koetsu Okazaki at Shooto: Back To Our Roots 5 via majority decision.

A decision win over Tetsu Suzuki was followed by a decision loss to Masakatsu Ueda in early 2008 to round out his Shooto tenure.

DREAM

In September of 2008, Yamamoto left Shooto for the higher profile, DREAM organization. In his DREAM debut he faced tough featherweight, Hideo Tokoro. Yamamoto looked good on his feet in the bout as he messed up Tokoro's face with strikes while defending any submission attempts from Tokoro. Yamamoto was nearly submitted in the closing seconds of round 2 but fought through to nab the unaimous decision victory from the judges.

Yamamoto was announced as one of 15 entrants in DREAM's featherweight (139 lbs.) tournament in early 2009. At DREAM 7, on March 8, 2009, Yamamoto faced Masakazu Imanari in the opening round with the bout also acting as the main event. In a close bout that Yamamoto looked to have edged, Imanari was awarded the split decision victory.