Kakuryū Rikisaburō

鶴竜 力三郎 Kakuryū Rikisaburō
Personal information
Born	Mangaljalav Anand (1985-08-10) August 10, 1985 Mongolia
Height	1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)
Weight	146 kg (322 lb; 23.0 st)
Career
Stable	Izutsu
Current rank	Ōzeki
Debut	November, 2001
Highest rank	Ōzeki (May, 2012)
Championships	1 (Sandanme)
Special Prizes	Technique (7), Outstanding Performance (2)
* Career information is correct as of Oct 2013.

Kakuryū Rikisaburō (born August 10, 1985 as Mangaljalavyn Anand, Mongolian: Мангалжалавын Ананд) is a professional sumo wrestler from Sükhbaatar Province, Mongolia. He has been a member of the top makuuchi division since November 2006 and has earned nine special prizes, seven for Technique, which is the most by any wrestler in any one category. He reached the third highest sekiwake rank in July 2009, and in March 2012 he secured promotion to the second highest rank of ōzeki after finishing runner up to yokozuna Hakuhō and accumulating a total of 33 wins in his previous three tournaments.

Career

Unlike many of his Mongolian sumo rivals Kakuryū's family have no background in Mongolian wrestling, his father instead being a university professor, and Kakuryū had no experience in wrestling before coming to Japan. He made his professional debut in November 2001, joining Izutsu stable. At the time he weighed just 82 kg (181 lb). After reaching the fourth highest sandanme division fairly quickly he then struggled somewhat, being demoted back to jonidan a couple of times. However, he eventually won the sandanme championship in July 2004 with a perfect 7-0 record and earned promotion to the third makushita division.

Kakuryū first reached sekitori status in November 2005 upon promotion to the jūryō division but fell short with a 5-10 record, dropping back to makushita. He returned to the second division in March 2006 and reached the top makuuchi division that November, after scoring 9 wins at the rank of jūryō 1 West in the previous tournament. He was the eighth Mongolian to make makuuchi after Kyokushūzan, Kyokutenhō, Asashōryū, Asasekiryū, Hakuhō, Harumafuji and Tokitenkū. One of seven wrestlers to be promoted to makuuchi for that tournament, he made his debut halfway up the maegashira ranks at number 8, the highest since Miyabiyama began at maegashira 7 in March 1999. He came through with a solid 8-7 record.

After a strong 11-4 record in January 2008, which earned him his first special prize for Technique, he was promoted to maegashira 1.

Kakuryū in May 2009.

He is currently the only wrestler from his stable in the top two divisions. Kakuryū was only the second wrestler produced by former sekiwake Sakahoko, to reach the top division since he became head of Izutsu stable in 1994 and the first since Akinoshu in 1997, although Sakahoko's brother, veteran Terao remained a sekitori until 2002.

He was forced to withdraw during the November 2008 tournament after spraining his knee, marking the first time in his career that he has missed bouts. In March 2009 he produced a fine 10-5 record from the maegashira 1 ranking, defeating three ozeki. He won his last eight matches after standing at 2-5 on the seventh day. He was awarded his second Technique Prize and made his san'yaku debut in the following tournament in May 2009 at the rank of komusubi. In a similar fashion to his previous tournament he recovered from 2-5 down to win seven of his last eight bouts and was rewarded with another Technique Prize.

In July 2009 Kakuryu was promoted to sekiwake, the first wrestler from his stable to reach the rank since Terao in 1989. He was only able to win five bouts in his sekiwake debut and fell back to the maegashira ranks. He responded with a strong 11-4 score, earning his third Technique prize in the last four tournaments and fourth overall. He returned to the sekiwake rank for the November tournament and although he failed once again to get a majority of wins, winning his last two bouts to finish 7-8 kept him in the san'yaku ranks. Disappointing performances in his next three tournaments saw him slip to maegashira 6, but he responded by winning eleven bouts in July, finishing as joint runner-up and winning his fifth Technique award. He returned to komusubi in September 2010 and moved up to sekiwake in November. He came into the final day of that tournament on seven wins and seven losses but failed to get his majority of wins, being defeated by fellow sekiwake Tochiozan. Ranked at komusubi in the May 2011 'technical examination' tournament he finished runner-up for the second time with a fine 12-3 record, and won his sixth Technique prize. Promoted to sekiwake for the July tournament (unusually he was one of three sekiwake in this basho) he produced another strong performance, defeating three ōzeki and finishing on 10-5. Although that meant that if Kakuryu won at least 11 bouts he would be in a strong position for possible promotion to ōzeki, he started off 3-4 and ended the tournament with only 9 victories.

In the January 2012 tournament Kakuryu defeated yokozuna Hakuhō for the first time, and as a result was awarded his first Outstanding Performance Prize.^[1] This was his first victory over a yokozuna in 27 attempts (previously he had been 0-20 against Hakuhō and 0-7 against Asashōryū). With two 10-5 scores in his last two tournaments Kakuryū was still in a good position for ōzeki promotion, despite his rivals Kotoshōgiku and Kisenosato recently achieving the rank.

In the crucial March 2012 tournament held in Osaka, Kakuryū defeated Hakuhō for the second time in a row on Day 9, and entered the final day of the tournament one win ahead of the yokozuna on 13–1, his only loss thus far being to Kisenosato on Day 8. However he was then defeated by Goeido, and Hakuhō's defeat of Baruto ensured a playoff between the two Mongolians. Hakuhō gained revenge on Kakuryū to claim his 22nd tournament title, but although he missed out on his first championship Kakuryū received prizes for Outstanding performance and Technique.^[2] Kakuryu told a press conference that inexperience cost him in his playoff against Hakuho and that a tournament victory was ″too soon for me.″^[3] His 33 wins over three tournaments was however still enough to grant him ōzeki promotion for the following May tournament. His promotion marks the first time there have been six active ōzeki in the history of sumo.^[4] It took him 62 tournaments from his professional debut to make ōzeki, which is the tenth slowest in sumo history and the slowest of the nine foreigners who have made the rank.^[5]

Fighting style

Kakuryū is one of the lightest men currently in the top division at around 130 kg (290 lb), and makes use of his agility by frequently employing henka (sidestepping) to outwit his opponents. His three most common winning techniques are yori-kiri, the force out, oshi-dashi, the push out, and hataki-komi, the slap down. He is also fond of shitatenage, the underarm throw. ^[6] His favourite grip on his opponents mawashi is migi-yotsu, with his left hand outside and right hand inside his opponent's arms.

Career record

See also

• Glossary of sumo terms
• List of active sumo wrestlers

References

External links

• Japan Sumo Association profile