Over the past week, three legends in combat sports have officially called it a career.

Earlier this week, Shane Carwin, former UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion officially announced on his Twitter account that he has decided to retire. Carwin, who has not been inside an octagon since June of 2011, lost his last two fights, one to Brock Lesnar and the other to Junior dos Santos in the UFC, the only two losses in this career.

Carwin will be remembered as a top UFC heavyweight fighter who only ever had one fight that went the distance. He started to make a comeback in the summer of 2012 after back surgery on “The Ultimate Fighter”, season 16, but after he was forced out of action once again with a knee injury and a fight with Roy Nelson was cancelled, it seemed that Carwin had no choice but to move on.

Another MMA legend, Dan “The Beast” Severn, who officially retired from mixed martial arts at the beginning of this year, has now also officially ended his time as a professional wrestler. The UFC hall-of-famer is of course best known for his fights in the early days of the UFC against such greats as Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock, but he also had quite a career as a professional wrestler as well, having spent a few years in the WWF (now World Wrestling Entertainment) in late 90’s, even stepping into the ring with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at one point. Severn returned to his roots in his hometown of Coldwater, Michigian and faced Jack Thriller, his protégé last Saturday. For more on Severn’s illustrious career, read the Fightbox blog for January 2013.

And last but certainly not least, Japanese pro wrestling great Kenta Kobashi stepped into the squared circle for the last time today. The Kenta Kobashi retirement event was held at the Nippon Budokan arena in Tokyo, Japan in front of a sold out crowd. Kobashi, a former AJPW and NOAH heavyweight champion, is widely regarded as one of the best professional wrestlers to have ever come from the Land of the Rising Sun. A retirement ceremony was held at the beginning of the show as well as a special eight-man tag team contest with Kobashi in the main event. Full results are below.

1) Masanobu Fuchi def. Hitoshi Kumano

~ Kenta Kobashi retirement ceremony ~

2) Taiji ishimori / Atsushi Kotoge def. SUWA / Genba Hirayanagi

3) Kotaro Suzuki / Atsushi Aoki def. Tamon Honda / Kentaro Shiga

4) Genichiro Tenryu / Yoshinari Ogawa def. Takeshi Morishima / Masao Inoue

5) Hiroshi Tanahashi / Yuji Nagata / Satoshi Kojima def. Takashi Sugiura / Mohammed Yone / Akitoshi Saito

6) Yoshihiro Takayama / Takao Omori def. Naomichi Marufuji / Minoru Suzuki

7) Kenta Kobashi / Jun Akiyama / Keiji Mutoh / Kensuke Sasaki def. KENTA / Go Shiozaki / Yoshinobu Kanemaru / Maybach Taniguchi