Takashi Miura and Takashi Uchiyama, two of the best Japanese boxers of this generation, separately announced their retirements.
Both men have retired after almost 20 combined years of entertaining fights and dominance in boxing's super featherweight division.
After a nearly three-year reign as the OBPF super featherweight champion, Uchiyama turned his attention to winning the WBA super featherweight title. He won the WBA title by stopping Juan Carlos Salgado in the 12th round in 2010. He would defend the title 11 straight times, nine of which resulted in a knockout win for Uchiyama. His last two fights saw Uchiyama lose his title to Jezreel Corrales and lose the rematch as well.
At a news conference that was held in a TV Tokyo studio on July 29, Uchiyama said he had no regrets and didn't have a lot of motivation to keep fighting at 37 years old.
“I began thinking of retiring around the end of April,” Uchiyama said. “The biggest reason was that I didn’t have as much motivation as I previously had and that I was hampered by injuries and I couldn’t dispel my doubt that I could be a better fighter than before. That’s why I decided to retire.”
Miura announced his retirement on Twitter in Japanese. The tweet roughly translates to: "After I pondered (the decision), I decided to retire. I don’t have regrets. As I was able to achieve my boyhood dream and get in the ring in America, which I had never imagined I would, I had the best possible boxing career. Thank you very much."
Miura, a former Japanese national champion, unsuccessfully challenged Uchiyama for the WBA title in 2011, but would later win the WBC title two years later. Miura would hold onto to the title until being stopped by Francisco Vargas in 2015 and would not get another world title shot for a while. That title shot came back in July when he lost a unanimous decision to current WBC champion Miguel Berchelt on an HBO card.
