Bushūyama Takashi

武州山 隆士 Bushūyama Takashi
Personal information
Born	Takashi Yamauchi (1976-05-21) May 21, 1976 Aomori, Aomori Prefecture
Height	1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)
Weight	170 kg (370 lb; 27 st)
Career
Stable	Fujishima
Record	416-427-25
Debut	January, 1999
Highest rank	Maegashira 3 (November, 2009)
Retired	January 2013
Championships	2 (Jūryō)
* Career information is correct as of Jan 2013.

Bushūyama Takashi (武州山 隆士, born May 21, 1976) is a Japanese former sumo wrestler from Aomori, Aomori Prefecture. He made his professional debut in January 1999. At the age of 32, he was promoted to the top makuuchi division in the November 2008 tournament. His highest rank was maegashira 3.

Career

Bushuyama was a member of the sumo club at Daito Bunka University, and reached the round of 16 in the 1998 All Japan Sumo Championship.^[1] As his club did not have many members, they regularly trained at Musashigawa stable, and this was the heya he joined upon entering the professional ranks. He made his debut in the same tournament as Asashōryū. He was given special dispensation to begin his career in the third highest makushita division because of his achievements in amateur sumo, but in 2001 fell to the jonidan division because of an elbow injury. He reached the second highest jūryō division in September 2003, the first member of his university to attain sekitori status.

Bushuyama in May 2009

In 2005 he fell back to makushita, and did not return to jūryō until January 2007. He won the jūryō division championship for the first time in July 2008, with a 12-3 record. He followed up with a 10-5 score in September. In November 2008, he was finally promoted to the top division. It had taken him 59 tournaments to win promotion to the top division from his debut, which at the time was the longest of any former collegiate champion (this dubious honor is now held by Tsurugidake). At 32 years and five months he was also the fourth oldest wrestler to make his top division debut since the end of World War II.^[2]

Bushuyama scored eight wins in his top division debut and was promoted to maegashira 6 for the January 2009 tournament. However, a very disappointing 2-13 record there meant he was demoted back to the jūryō division for the March 2009 tournament. He scored 8-7 there, enough for an immediate top division return. He recovered from 1-5 down in May to score 9-6 at maegashira 15. In the September tournament he produced his best top division score to date of 10-5, narrowly failing to win a special prize after being beaten on the final day. He was promoted to his highest rank to date of maegashira 3 for November 2009. He defeated ozeki Kotomitsuki in this tournament, but recorded a make-koshi score of 6-9. In January 2010 he produced a poor 2-13 record, the same score from the same rank as the previous Hatsu basho in 2009. However on this occasion he remained in the top division for the following tournament, albeit at the very lowest rank of Maegashira 16 West. He lost his top division status after scoring only 4-11 in March, but won his second jūryō championship with an 11-4 record in May and secured an immediate return to makuuchi. He was demoted to juryo again after the November 2010 tournament, and lost sekitori status altogether after the May 2012 tournament, never to regain it. He announced his retirement after the January 2013 basho.

He was a contemporary of Wakanosato and Takamisakari, both also from Aomori.

Fighting style

Bushuyama favoured yotsu-sumo or a grappling style, preferring a hidari-yotsu or right hand outside, left hand inside grip on his opponents mawashi. His most common winning technique was yori-kiri (force-out) followed by oshi dashi (push out) and yori-taoshi (force out and down).

Career record

See also

• Glossary of sumo terms
• List of sumo tournament second division champions
• List of active sumo wrestlers

References

External links

• Japan Sumo Association Biography