Yoshiazuma Hiroshi

Yoshiazuma Hiroshi
芳東 洋
Personal information
Born	Hiroshi Ishihara (1977-05-26) May 26, 1977 Kashima, Kumamoto, Japan
Height	1.98 m (6 ft 6 in)
Weight	170 kg (370 lb)
Career
Stable	Tamanoi
Current rank	see below
Debut	January, 1996
Highest rank	Maegashira 12 (January, 2012)
* Up to date as of July 22, 2017.

Yoshiazuma Hiroshi (born 26 May 1977 as Hiroshi Ishihara) is a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Kashima, Kumamoto. He made his professional debut in January 1996 and reached the top division in September 2011. His highest rank has been maegashira 12. The fifteen years it took him to reach the top division is the third-slowest progress ever, in the history of professional sumo wrestling.

Early life and sumo background

In his early years Ishihara was more interested in soccer, and was a member of the kendō team in middle school. He started sumo in high school, and in his third year contributed to his team taking the championship in a national tournament. He chose to join Tamanoi stable when he graduated high school.

Career

Upon joining professional sumo in March 1996, he took the ring name of Yoshiazuma, taking the first character from a benefactor's name and the second character following the convention of taking the character of azuma from the current and previous stable owners, former Tochiazuma II, and Tochiazuma I. Yoshiazuma's career started out very successfully and in only his second tournament he almost took the jonidan division championship, losing a three-man playoff to Akiyama. He actually beat Akiyama in the second round, but lost to him in the fourth and final round. His career after this was lackluster however, and for the next fifteen years he would struggle in the unsalaried ranks, through a series of setbacks, ever so slowly working his way up through the ranks.

He finally achieved promotion to the salaried ranks of jūryō in January 2011. He scored only 6–9 in his jūryō debut, but after the cancellation of the March tournament he enjoyed a big promotion up the division from jūryō 13 to jūryō 2 despite only scoring a bare majority of 8–7 in the May 2011 "technical examination" tournament. He benefitted from a large number of retirements in the jūryō division following a match-fixing scandal, with the Sumo Association needing to over-promote to fill the gaps. However he took advantage of his good fortune by putting in a strong 9–6 score in July and was promoted to the top division for the September 2011 tournament. This feat took him fifteen years and 93 tournaments from his professional debut, the third slowest rise to the top division in the history of sumo. However, he only lasted this one tournament, being relegated after a 5–10 record. His second tournament in makuuchi was also unsuccessful, a 3–12 in January 2012. After three winning records in the next four tournaments he earned promotion to makuuchi for a third time in November 2012, but was again demoted straightaway, after another 3–12 score. Yoshiazuma has not managed a return to makuuchi, and lost sekitori status altogether after the September 2014 tournament. He earned his 500th career win in the March 2016 tournament, and he has a career winning record of just under 50 percent, having fought 1008 matches up to that time. He has not missed a bout since his debut and has the longest streak of consecutive career bouts amongst active wrestlers.

Fighting style

Yoshiazuma is a solidly yotsu-sumo wrestler who prefers grappling to pushing and thrusting techniques. His favoured grip on his opponent's mawashi or belt is migi-yotsu, a left hand outside, right hand inside position. He wins about half of his bouts with a straightforward yori-kiri, or force out. Another kimarite he regularly uses is hataki-komi, the slap down.

Career record

See also

• List of sumo record holders
• Glossary of sumo terms
• List of active sumo wrestlers

References

External links

• Yoshiazuma Hiroshi's official biography (English) at the Grand Sumo Homepage