Nishikigi Tetsuya

Nishikigi Tetsuya 錦木 徹也
Personal information
Born	Tetsuya Kumagai (1990-08-25) August 25, 1990 Morioka, Iwate Prefecture
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Weight	170 kg (370 lb)
Career
Stable	Isenoumi
Current rank	see below
Debut	March, 2006
Highest rank	Maegashira 6 (Nov, 2016)
Championships	1 Makushita 1 Jūryō
* Up to date as of July 23, 2017.

Nishikigi Tetsuya (錦木 徹也) is a professional sumo wrestler from the Iwate Prefecture. He made his debut in March 2006 and wrestles for Isenoumi stable. His highest rank has been Maegashira 6 and he has won championships at Jūryō and Makushita level.

Early life and sumo experience

Having met the former owner of the Isenoumi stable ex-sekiwake Fujinokawa, Kumagai heard about Yotsuguruma, a sumo wrestler before him who is also from Iwate prefecture and it inspired him to join sumo himself. He joined this stable after graduating from a local Morioka city junior high school.

Nishikigi has extremely poor vision and is always wearing glasses when not practicing or off the ring and even wears them for post bout interviews. He has stated he can't even see any fans during sumo which helps keep him from getting nervous.^[1]

Career

He first stepped onto the dohyō in March 2006. He joined sumo the same time as future top division wrestlers Tochinoshin, Sakaizawa, and Shōhōzan. He worked his way slowly up the ranks, earning sandanme division promotion in July 2008 and makushita in January 2010. However, he struggled in the third division and soon fell back to sandanme.^[2] Though he was soon back in makushita he languished at this level. Though he managed a to contend for the makushita' championship in November 2010, where he lost in a multiple wrestler playoff, and won the championship in this division outright with a 6-1 record in November 2012, continuing mediocre performances kept him in the third division for four and a half years. During these struggling years, he took the ring name of Nishikigi. He was the first wrestler in 144 years to take this name.^[3] However, starting in September 2014, 4 consecutive 5-2 records propelled him to the salaried ranks of jūryō for the May 2015 tournament. Finding his stride, it took him a year to work his way up through jūryō and after recording ten wins in January 2016 he was promoted to the top division makuuchi for the first time.

In the top division, Nishikigi initially made little impact but nine wins in July followed by eight in September saw him promoted to a career high of maegashira 6. He then began to struggle and after three consecutive losing records he was demoted back to jūryō after the March tournament. Wrestling at jūryō 4 in May he lost his first two matches but in an unusually open division he entered the penultimate day on 8-5 in a seven-way tie for the lead. After beating Homarefuji he clinched the title on the final day with a victory over the veteran Aminishiki. He was promoted back to makuuchi for the July 2017 tournament where he secured his majority of wins against losses on the last day with a defeat of Tokushōryū.

Fighting style

Nishikigi is an oshi-sumo specialist who prefers pushing and thrusting at his opponents to fighting on the mawashi or belt. His Japan Sumo Association profile shows that 75 percent of his victories over the last six tournaments have been by either yori-kiri (force out) or oshi-dashi (push out).^[4]

Career record

See also

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

References

External links

• Nishikigi Tetsuya's official biography (English) at the Grand Sumo Homepage