Hakuhō Shō
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| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Real name | Munkhbat Davaajargal | |
| Date of birth | March 11, 1985 | |
| Place of birth | Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia | |
| Height | 192cm (6'4") | |
| Weight | 153kg (337lb) | |
| Career* | ||
| Heya | Miyagino | |
| Rank | Ozeki | |
| Record | 273-118-21 | |
| Debut | March, 2001 | |
| Highest rank | Ozeki (May, 2006) | |
| Yushos | 2 (Makuuchi) 1 (Juryo) |
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| Special Prizes | Outstanding Performance (3) Fighting Spirit (1) Technique (2) |
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| Gold stars | 1 (Asashoryu) | |
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* Career information is correct as of March 2007. |
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Hakuhō Shō (白鵬 翔?) is a professional sumo wrestler. Born Munkhbat Davaajargal on March 11, 1985 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, he is the sixth foreign-born wrestler to reach the rank of ozeki.
Like many of his countrymen in the sumo world, Hakuho comes from a family with mongolian wrestling tradition. His father Jigjid Munkhbat won a silver medal in freestyle wrestling at the 1968 Olympics. When Hakuho was 15, he came to Japan. Weighing only 62 kilograms, no sumo training stables accepted him. Hearing this, a Mongolian wrestler, Kyokushuzan, asked his sumo stable master for a help, and Hakuho at last was approved to a sumo stable, Miyagino-beya, on the last day of his two-month stay in Japan. He first fought on the ring in March 2001, with steadily gaining weight rose to Juryo division in January 2004 and to Makuuchi division in May of the same year. His results in the following tournaments - he even defeated the dominating Yokozuna Asashoryu once - were sufficient to get him a promotion to Komusubi as fast as January 2005 and Sekiwake only one basho later. However, he was prevented from becoming the youngest ozeki in sumo history by an injury which forced him to take an injury leave from the Nagoya basho in 2005.
In March 2006, Hakuho was promoted to Ozeki. The promotion came just a few weeks after his twenty-first birthday, making him the fourth youngest wrestler to reach the title in the modern sumo history.
At his first tournament as Ozeki in May 2006, Hakuho won his first championship with a dominant 14-1 record. After another strong performance (13-2) in July Hakuho flirted with promotion to yokozuna, but an uncharacteristically poor 8-7 showing in September shelved such hopes for the time being. A training injury in November prevented him from participating in the Kyushu tournament [1], putting him at risk for demotion in January 2007. However, he scored a respectable ten wins on his return to the ring. On March 25 2007 he won his second championship in Osaka.
