The former world champion, Japanese Ryota Murata, held a press conference on Tuesday, to announce that he is retiring as a boxer after a successful career in both amateur and professional boxing. 

Murata is one of the most outstanding Japanese fighters of an entire era, having won an Olympic medal in his career, in addition to having been a professional champion afterwards.

In 2012 he won the gold medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games in the middleweight. Something that he had already been forewarning for years and an evidence is that he had been second place in the 2011 World Amateur Boxing Championships held in Baku. 

After his success in amateur boxing, he decided to jump to professional boxing, a field in which he also had an outstanding career. He debuted in 2013 and began to rise until in 2017 he managed to win the WBA 160-pound crown. Although he lost it in his second exhibition, he got it back and defended it again in one opportunity. 

His last fight was in April 2022 against Gennady Golovkin, to whom he lost by knockout in a unification bout held in Japan.

The WBA congratulates Murata for such a stupendous career as a boxer in all fields and wishes him a happy retirement, as well as success in any project he wishes to undertake. Thanks for everything, champ.