Shohei Ono's 5 Notable Losses

Shohei Ono seldom loses but over the years he has lost a few times. Here are five notable losses he has experienced. In the 2011 Qingdao Grand Prix, Mongolian's Nyam-Ochir Sainjargal threw Ono for ippon with a sneaky uchimata that caught Ono completely by surprise. Sainjargal had been gripping right handed when suddenly he switched stance and came in with a left uchimata. This took Ono over for ippon.

Ono met South Korea's Wang Ki-chun in the final of the 2012 Tashkent Asian Championships. Wang had attacked Ono with an uchimata followed by a kouchi-gake, which took the both of them to the ground. Instead of standing up, Ono proceed to attack Wang on the ground but the wily Korean managed to counter him on the ground and pin him for ippon.

Ono had beaten Mongolia's Tsagaanbaatar Khashbaatar in the semifinal of the 2012 Tokyo Grand Slam but the Mongolian got his revenge just a few months later, in the semifinal of the 2013 Paris Grand Slam where he threw Ono with uchimata for ippon. Like his teammate Sainjargal in 2011, Khashbaatar was holding right when he suddenly turned left and launched Ono with uchimata. Ironically, the Mongolian's uchimata involved a head-dive, something Ono is known to do a lot. No hansoku-make was given though.

The biggest shock of Ono's career happened in the 4th round of the 2014 Chelyabinsk World Championships. Ono, who was the defending World Champion, got footswept for ippon by a relatively unknown South Korean named Lee Young-jun. Lee feinted a forward attack and swept Ono flat onto his back. It was without question the biggest upset of that championship.

It was not a good year for Ono as he would go on to lose to his teammate Hiroyuki Akimoto in the final of the 2014 Tokyo Grand Slam. A seoi-nage specialist who can throw morote-seoi-nage to the right and ippon-seoi-nage to the left, Akimoto managed to slip underneath Ono to score a yuko. It was enough to win the match.

Ono's defeat to Akimoto was the last time Ono would lose in an individual championships (he lost to Germany's Igor Wandtke in the Tokyo Olympics' Mixed Teams Championships).