Charlie Ota (born Charles Bellamy; 24 August 1981) is an American

professional boxer Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional fights are supervised by a regulatory auth ...

, who held the

OPBF The Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation (OPBF) is a professional boxing organization that sanctions title fights in the Asian and Pacific region. History Oriental boxing started in the Philippines in 1946 after the Spanish-American War. Whi ...

light middleweight Light middleweight, also known as junior middleweight or super welterweight,PeBoxRec/ref> is a weight class in boxing but also may include other combat sports. Boxing The light middleweight division (also known as junior middleweight in the Intern ...

title between 2010 and 2013.

Career

Ota is a former

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

serviceman. Towards the end of his tour in

Yokosuka is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 373,797, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th-most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city i ...

, he joined a boxing gym in Hachiouji as a way to stay in shape. He participated in a Japanese national amateur tournament, where he did well. Ota decided to stay in Japan and pursue a career in boxing. In March 2010, Ota defeated Akio Shibata to claim the

title, as well as the Japanese national title. Ota went on to successfully defend his OPBF title eight times. Ota sought to step up and face

Nobuhiro Ishida is a Japanese former professional boxer. He is a former World Boxing Association, WBA Interim championship, interim super welterweight champion who is best known for knocking out James Kirkland (boxer), James Kirkland in a middleweight bout at t ...

or former OPBF champion Yuki Nonaka as he pursued a world title shot but was unable to finalize a deal with either of them. In March 2012, Ota debuted in his hometown of New York at the

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh and Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eig ...

, on the undercard of a Sergio Martínez fight. Ota defeated Gundrick King with a round 7 TKO. In January 2014, Ota vacated his OPBF title in order to pursue a world title. It was later announced the Ota would be fighting highly touted prospect

Jermell Charlo Jermell DeAvante Charlo (; born May 19, 1990) is an American professional boxer. He held the undisputed championship at light middleweight from 2022 to 2023 and ''The Ring'' light middleweight title from 2020 to 2024. His identical twin broth ...

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

. Ota managed to drop Charlo in round 3 but was outclassed through most of the fight, losing a

unanimous decision A unanimous decision (UD) is a winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts and other sports involving striking and submission in which all three judges agree on which fighte ...

(111-115, 109–118, 109–118). In December 2014, Ota faced Yuki Nonaka, seeking to reclaim the Japanese light middleweight title. The fight was extremely close, but the judges seemed to prefer Nonaka's sharper work over Ota's aggression, as Nonaka won a

split decision A split decision (SD) is a winning criterion in boxing, most commonly in full-contact combat sports, in which two of the three judges score one particular competitor as the winner, while the third judge scores for the other competitor. A split de ...

(97-93, 96–95, 95–96).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ota, Charlie 1981 births Living people Boxers from New York City American male boxers Light-middleweight boxers United States Navy sailors