On Sunday in Osaka, Japan, wrestler Takerufuji won in his debut one of the six official tournaments of makuuchi, the top division of professional sumo, commonly known as honbasho. It hadn’t happened for 110 years that a rookie wrestler won an Emperor’s Cup (the trophy awarded to winners): the last one to do so was Ryogoku in 1914.
Takerufuji beat Gonoyama in the final, a fighter with a few more years of experience and who had already made himself noticed in other tournaments of the honey. His victory is considered rather surprising not only because it was achieved on his debut, but also because, the day before the final, Takerufuji had to leave the Edion Arena in Osaka (the arena that hosted the event) in a wheelchair due to of a bad ankle injury.
Takerufuji said that, before the final, his medical staff advised him to withdraw from the tournament to recover from the injury, but in the end he chose to fight anyway because otherwise he would “regret” it for the rest of his life. In the 15 days in which the tournament took place he had achieved 13 victories and 2 defeats. Furthermore, by winning 11 fights consecutively, Takerufuji equaled the record that the legendary yokozuna Taiho had established in 1960.
Mikiya Ishioka (Takerufuji’s real name) is 24 years old and comes from Aomori Prefecture, in northern Honshu, the main island of Japan. He is considered one of the most promising sumo wrestlers of his generation and aspires to the title of yokozunathe highest level that those who practice this sport can aspire to.
Takerufuji is also considered one of the most promising fighters to clean up the image of a sport which, in recent years, has been talked about outside the niche of fans especially due to widespread episodes of bullying, abuse of power and violence, linked in part to the fact that in sumo the culture of corporal punishment is generally seen as an educational moment of discipline.
Even though baseball has become the most widely practiced sport in recent years, sumo still has great relevance in Japan and is considered a national discipline. The strongest fighters are celebrities and have very lucrative contracts.
The professional sumo season is structured into six tournaments honbasho: three take place in Tokyo and the remaining in Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. Wrestlers gain or lose points in the overall ranking based on their records in each tournament. The honbasho they usually last 15 days: the wrestlers of the makuuchi and jūryō (the second division) fight once a day, while those in the lower divisions fight a total of seven matches, one every two days.
The main objective of the honbasho is being able to get a kachi-koshi, i.e. a positive balance between victories and defeats (therefore at least 8 victories in the makuuchi and jūryō and at least four victories in the lower ones).
2024-03-25 07:51:36
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