Watanabe set to retire this Sunday

Regardless of skill level and accomplishments, all athletes face the harsh reality that one day their careers’ will end. Be it by their own decision, the decision of others, or unseen circumstances, it is unavoidable. So then how should one end their career? Should one go out on their own terms, like Jim Brown, who retired at the height of his powers so people didn’t have to watch him fade away, or should one persist, heroically fighting through injuries and trying to make up for one’s diminishing abilities with experience? For Shooto Watanabe, the answer is the former.

He’d rather retire on his own terms and not be forced out by injury or because he can no longer compete. Why this option? While it is true that his motivation has dropped over the past couple of years due to several factors, one of which was the inability to compete abroad, I found it particularly interesting when he referenced Masato, who also went out at the height of his game, defeating rival Andy Souwer in his final bout, a fight that Watanabe went to. In fact it was the first fight he ever saw in person and it made such an impression on him that it motivated him to become a professional fighter. So in a way, Masato not only inspired Shooto to become a fighter, he also inspired the way in which chose to retire. 

While Watanabe is no Masato, no one else can be, he did emerge as one of the more interesting characters on the Japanese MMA scene. He represented a breed of fighter who spends the majority of their career in promotions outside of Deep, Pancrase, and Shooto, promotions like Fighting Nexus, ZST, and Gladiator. In addition, once he made it to the big stage, Watanabe stood out as a unique personality, the son of Shooto fighters who likes eating sweets, who owns a lot of pets, and spent most of his Rizin post-fight speeches making appeals for his wife to also get a fight in the promotion, he was not your stereotypical Rizin fighter.

According to Shooto, when he became a professional fighter his only goal was to become a champion and retire by his 30th birthday. However, this proved to be easier said than done. In 2016, at the age of 27, he fought for the ZST Bantamweight Championship but was finished in the 2nd round and a year later he failed to win the Gladiator Bantamweight Championship. These losses led to self-doubt and he started to wonder whether or not he could win a championship and whether or not he was a champion-caliber fighter. Nevertheless, he persisted and just a year later when he was 29, he fought for and won the Fighting Nexus Championship. When asked, he told us this was the happiest moment of his career. His only real goal had to been to become a champion and he finally did it, 27 fights into his career.

Shooto’s goal had been to become a champion and retire at 30, but now that he was the Fighting Nexus champion, a promotion he has never lost in, he wanted to represent the promotion on a bigger stage. Originally, he wanted to go to Shooto, where his parents had gone and with whom he shares a name, but his girlfriend introduced him to Shigeru Saeki, the head of Deep, and after speaking to his manager, he decided to go to Deep instead. To him, this was like being called up to the Majors, as Deep boasted a strong roster and regularly held events at famous venues like the Korakuen Hall.

Throughout his career, Shooto wanted to test himself against the best and to see how far he could go, which is exactly what he did. He became the Fighting Nexus Champion, then went to Deep and won, then went to Rizin where he fought the best in his division and put on some great performances. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, he wasn’t able to fight and test himself abroad, something that he really wanted to do, and with no new stage to test himself on, he lost his desire to continue and eventually decided to retire. It wasn’t an immediate decision, as he wanted to keep fighting in Rizin in order to create an avenue for his now-wife to get into the promotion but after a couple years, he decided to hang it up while he could still compete at a high level, on his own terms.

For his final opponent, Shooto asked Fighting Nexus to get him the strongest opponent available, so they got Takuya Ogura, a Shooto Infinity League and PFC Tournament Champion who is coming off 2 armbar wins. They will face off at Fighting Nexus Vol. 32 this Sunday, August 20th, at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan. After Sunday, Shooto plans to continue competing in grappling and BJJ while running his new gym, which is located suspiciously close to a convenience store where the infamous sweet lover can get his fill. He also told us that he stills hopes to one day serve as a cornerman for his wife in Rizin.