Naoya Uematsu (born 10 September 1978) is a retired Japanese[1] mixed martial artist[2] who competed in the bantamweight, featherweight and lightweight[3] divisions in Cage Force, DEEP and Shooto.
He started training in shoot wrestling at Shooto Gym K'z Factory under Kazuhiro Kusayanagi when he was 16 and immediately became an undefeated champion in amateur competitions.
Uematsu debuted in the Lumax Cup lightweight tournament in 1997 defeating Takashi Ochi and Mitsuo Matsumoto.
[4] Uematsu would rack up an undefeated 11–0–2 record in 6 years in Shooto defeating luminaries such as Katsuya Toida and Noboru Asahi.
Uematsu would go 1–3–0 in the final two years of his mixed martial arts career, with losses to Urijah Faber and Marcos Galvao.