Aoiyama Kōsuke

Aoiyama Kōsuke
碧山 亘右
Aoiyama in the January 2012 tournament
Personal information
Born	Daniel Ivanov (1986-06-19) June 19, 1986 Elhovo, Bulgaria
Height	1.92 m (6 ft 3 1⁄2 in)
Weight	201 kg (443 lb; 31.7 st)
Career
Stable	Tagonoura, Kasugano stable
Current rank	see below
Debut	May, 2009
Highest rank	Sekiwake (Nov 2014)
Championships	1 (Makushita) 1 (Jonidan) 1 (Jonokuchi)
Special Prizes	Fighting Spirit (2)
Gold Stars	1 (Harumafuji)
* Up to date as of July 23, 2017.

Aoiyama Kōsuke (碧山 亘右) (born June 19, 1986 as Daniel Ivanov, Bulgarian: Даниел Иванов, in Elhovo, Bulgaria) is a professional sumo wrestler or rikishi. He made his debut in 2009, reaching the top division two years later, debuting in the November 2011 tournament. He has won two Fighting Spirit awards and one kinboshi for defeating a yokozuna. His highest rank has been sekiwake. He is one of the heaviest competitors in sumo, weighing around 200 kg for most tournaments.

Early life and sumo background

After wrestling for ten years and doing amateur sumo for three, he entered the professional sumo world at the introduction of fellow countryman, ōzeki Kotoōshū, becoming only the second Bulgarian rikishi. He joined Tagonoura stable, run by former maegashira Kushimaumi. When asked by his coach whether he preferred mountains or rivers, he chose mountains and so was given the ring name of Aoiyama, meaning "blue mountain".

Career

Early career

Aoiyama in his debut tournament

In his professional debut as Aoiyama Kiyohito in the September 2009 tournament, he won the jonokuchi championship with a perfect 7–0 record. He subsequently changed his name to Aoiyama Kōsuke for his jonidan debut in the following November tournament, which he also won with a 7–0 record followed by a playoff win against the sole Kazakhstani wrestler Kazafuzan. In the following January 2010 tournament at sandanme he finally lost his first bout, having won all of his previous 16 matches. This would be his only loss though, and his 6–1 record was enough to propel him into the makushita division in the following March tournament. He again posted a perfect record and took the 'makushita championship. His meteoric rise would slow starting with his next tournament however. He only managed two wins in his next makushita tournament. This was his first losing tournament. In contrast to his previous successes, he struggled somewhat for several more tournaments at this level. He eventually had enough winning tournaments in upper makushita to allow his promotion into the professional jūryō ranks for the July 2011 tournament. He was promoted to the high rank of jūryō 4 due to the high number of vacancies left by wrestlers forced to retire due to involvement in match-fixing. At this high level he only managed a 7-8 record and moved down two ranks to jūryō 6 for the following September tournament. Suffering from a herniated disc, he was forced to sit out the first two days of the tournament, but managed to make a remarkable recovery and pulled out an impressive 10–3 record for his remaining bouts of the tournament.

Makuuchi career

Aoiyama's record was enough to allow him promotion to the top makuuchi division for November 2011. He posted an impressive 11–4 record and received a Fighting Spirit award for his efforts. He did, however, share this record with his rival, Wakakōyū having lost to him on the final day of the tournament.

In February 2012 Aoiyama's stablemaster died and Tagonoura stable was dissolved, with Aoiyama moving to the affiliated Kasugano stable. After an 8–7 score in the March tourney, he reached his highest rank to date of maegashira 6 in the May tournament, where he produced a fine 11–4 record. In the July tournament he faced all the top ranked wrestlers for the first time. Although he was 1–6 down after seven days, he recovered to clinch his kachi-koshi on the final day. In September he made his san'yaku debut at komusubi, which was just 18 tournaments after his professional debut, the seventh fastest since 1958.^[1] However, he could only win four matches. He was forced to withdraw from the November 2012 tournament on Day 9 with a knee injury. He picked up his first kinboshi or gold star for defeating yokozuna Harumafuji in September 2013.

He earned promotion to sekiwake with a strong 10–5 performance in September 2014 in which he went 4–3 against wrestlers ranked in the san'yaku. He then secured a winning record in the subsequent November tournament to remain at sekiwake for the start of 2015. A 5-10 record in January 2015 saw him lose his san'yaku status was followed by another ten losses in March, but he showed some return to form to post winning records in May and July. Between September 2015 and March 2016 he recorded four consecutive 7-8 records at the top end of the maegashira rankings before a 6-9 in May. He remained in the upper-to-mid maegashira for the next few tournaments but a 4-11 in May 2017 saw him drop to maegashira 8, his lowest rank for three years. Aoiyama responded to the less challenging schedule by producing a career-best performance in July 2017 – he entered the final day as the only wrestler left in a position to deny Hakuhō his 39th championship. He defeated komusubi Yoshikaze in his last match but was denied the chance to take part in a play-off for the yūshō when Hakuhō also won his final match.^[2] Nevertheless Aoiyama finished in second place on 13-2, winning his second Fighting Spirit prize in the process.

Fighting style

Aoiyama was a yotsu-sumo specialist who preferred grabbing the opponent's mawashi and grappling rather than pushing or thrusting. However, after gaining significant weight following his Makuuchi debut, he started to predominantly use pushing, thrusting and back-step pulling attacks as this has proven extremely effective due to his upper body strength. As of March 2015, 62% of his wins have come by mean of either hatakikomi, oshidashi and tsukidashi, all of which involved pushing and thrusting.^[3]

Family

Aoiyama is married to an architect from the same area of Bulgaria as himself. They met in 2015 when both were in Bulgaria, and began living together in Japan from July 2016. The marriage was registered in August and the wedding reception was held in a Tokyo hotel in February 2017 with around 230 guests including fellow Dewanoumi group members such as Ura and Mitakeumi.^{[4] [5]}

Career record

See also

• List of active gold star earners
• Glossary of sumo terms
• List of active sumo wrestlers
• List of non-Japanese sumo wrestlers

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aoiyama Kōsuke.

• Aoiyama Kōsuke's official biography (English) at the Grand Sumo Homepage