Kirishima Kazuhiro is a former
sumois a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
wrestler from
Makizono, KagoshimaMakizono was a town located in Aira District, Kagoshima, Japan.On November 7, 2005 Makizono was merged with the towns of Kirishima , Fukuyama, Hayato, Mizobe and Yokogawa, all from Aira District, and the old city of Kokubu, to form the new city of Kirishima and no longer exists as an independent...
,
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, who held the second highest rank of
ōzeki from 1990 to 1992 and won one top division tournament championship. He is now known as Michinoku-oyakata and is the head coach of
Michinoku stableThe is a stable of sumo wrestlers, part of the Tokitsukaze ichimon or group of stables. It was established in 1974 by former maegashira Hoshikabuto, who branched off from Izutsu stable. Former ozeki Kirishima became the current head coach in December 1997. It absorbed Tatsutagawa stable in...
.
Early career
Beginning his career in March 1975, Kazumi Yoshinaga, as he then was, joined the
Izutsu stableis a stable of sumo wrestlers, part of the Tokitsukaze group of stables.The stable was established in the Meiji era by former yokozuna Nishinoumi Kajirō I, the 16th yokozuna, who became the 7th Izutsu-oyakata. He was succeeded by Nishinoumi Kajirō II, the 25th yokozuna...
. He was given the
sumo nameA shikona is a sumo wrestler's ring name.As with standard Japanese names, a shikona consists of a 'surname' and a 'given' name, and the full name is written surname first. However, the given name is rarely used outside formal or ceremonial occasions. Thus, the former yokozuna Asashōryū Akinori is...
Kirishima, which came from the
national parkis a national park in Kyūshū, Japan. It is composed of two parts: Kirishima-Kagoshima Bay, an area of Kagoshima Prefecture and Miyazaki Prefecture known for its active volcanoes, volcanic lakes, and onsen; and Yakushima, an island south of Kyūshū in Kagoshima Prefecture, known for its cryptomeria...
in his native Kagoshima Prefecture. He did not become established as an elite
sekitoriA sekitori is a sumo wrestler who is ranked in one of the top two professional divisions: makuuchi and juryo.Currently there are 70 rikishi in these divisions...
wrestler until November 1983 when he produced a 9-6 score at the rank of
juryo 10 (he had made the
juryo division briefly in May 1982 but had lasted only one tournament there). He reached the top
makuuchior is the top division of professional sumo. Its size is fixed at 42 wrestlers , ordered into five ranks according to their ability as defined by their performance in previous tournaments....
division for the first time in July 1984, and won a
sanshoSanshō are the three special prizes awarded to top division sumo wrestlers for exceptional performance during a sumo honbasho or tournament. The prizes were first awarded in November 1947.-Criteria:...
or special prize for Fighting Spirit in his very first tournament.
Persistently struggling to gain weight, he enlisted the help of his girlfriend and future wife Naoko in the quest to bulk up and avoid frequent defeats by simple push-out. He was also a fitness fanatic who started his career by running several kilometres even before morning training started at 6am.
One of the lightest wrestlers in the division, Kirishima earned a reputation as a giant-killer, defeating heavyweights such as Onokuni and Konishiki several times. However, he seemed to struggle when promoted out of the
maegashira ranks. After finishing tournament runner-up and winning the Technique Prize in November 1986 he was promoted to the
sanyaku ranks for the first time at
sekiwake in the following tournament but could only manage a 3-12 record, and when he finally managed to return to
sanyaku at
komusubi rank in January 1989 he recorded a dismal 1-14. However, later that year he began a new training regime. In addition to his usual practice matches at Izutsu stable, he did regular
weight trainingWeight training is a common type of strength training for developing the strength and size of skeletal muscles. It uses the weight force of gravity to oppose the force generated by muscle through concentric or eccentric contraction...
at a private
gymThe word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
nasium, and supplemented his normal sumo diet with a specially prepared high
calorieThe calorie is a pre-SI metric unit of energy. It was first defined by Nicolas Clément in 1824 as a unit of heat, entering French and English dictionaries between 1841 and 1867. In most fields its use is archaic, having been replaced by the SI unit of energy, the joule...
and high
proteinProteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
drink. His efforts paid off. He returned to
komusubi in November 1989 scoring 10 wins, and then turned in an 11-4 mark and runner-up performance in January 1990. In March 1990 at
sekiwake he produced a superb 13-2 record, defeating
yokozuna Chiyonofuji (for the first time in twelve attempts) and Hokutoumi and all three
ozeki. He took part in a rare three way playoff with Konishiki and Hokutoumi, who had also finished on 13-2. Although Hokutoumi took the title, after the tournament Kirishima was promoted to
ozeki. It was his second straight runner-up performance, earning him his third Outstanding Performance and fourth Technique Prizes, and a three tournament record of 34 wins and 11 losses.
Ozeki
Kirishima had reached sumo's second highest rank at the age of nearly 31, and the 91 tournaments it took him is the slowest ever promotion to
ozeki. The highlight of his career came in January 1991 when he took his first
yushoA Yūshō is a tournament championship in sumo. It is awarded in each of the six annual honbasho or official tournaments, to the wrestler who wins the most number of bouts. Yūshō are awarded in all six professional sumo divisions...
or tournament title, gaining his revenge on Hokutoumi by defeating him on the last day. It was also the first top division championship for Izutsu stable in over sixty years. Kirishima was also runner-up in the tournaments of September 1991, March 1992 and July 1992. However, in September of that year he could only manage a 7-8 score, and he had to pull out of the November tournament with an injury after only one win. As a result, he lost his
ozeki status.
Later career and retirement
Rather than retire, Kirishima chose to carry on fighting in the
maegashira ranks. He in fact had little choice, as (rather unusually for a former
ozeki) he did not own
toshiyoriA toshiyori is a sumo elder of the Japan Sumo Association. Also known as oyakata, former wrestlers who reached a sufficiently high rank are the only people eligible...
(elder) stock in the Sumo Association and so would have risked being forced to leave the sumo world permanently if he had retired at that point. In March 1996 he produced a poor 3-12 record, and facing certain demotion to
juryo, he announced his retirement after 21 years in the sport, just short of his 37th birthday. He at first borrowed his stablemate
TeraoTerao Tsunefumi is a former sumo wrestler. He was born in Tokyo, but brought up in Kajiki, Aira District, Kagoshima, Japan. He fought out of Izutsu stable...
's Shikoroyama elder name, then when that was needed by the retiring Kotogaume he used Tagaryu's Katsunoura before securing the Michinoku name and becoming the head of the
Michinoku stableThe is a stable of sumo wrestlers, part of the Tokitsukaze ichimon or group of stables. It was established in 1974 by former maegashira Hoshikabuto, who branched off from Izutsu stable. Former ozeki Kirishima became the current head coach in December 1997. It absorbed Tatsutagawa stable in...
in December 1997. He has produced several wrestlers with top division experience, including Jumonji, Toyozakura and
HakubaHakuba Takeshi is a former sumo wrestler from Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Joining the professional sport in 2000, he entered the top division for the first time in 2008, returning in 2010. His highest rank was komusubi...
. In February 2010 he was elected to the Sumo Association's board of Directors, but was forced to step down from his post in April 2011 when four of his wrestlers (Jumonji, Toyozakura, Hakuba and Kirinowaka) were ordered to retire after being found guilty of match-fixing.
Fighting style
Kirishima was a
yotsu sumo wrestler who preferred grappling techniques to pushing and thrusting. His favoured grip on the opponent's
mawashiIn sumo, a mawashi is the belt that the rikishi wears during training or in competition. Upper ranked professional wrestlers wear a keshō-mawashi as part of the ring entry ceremony or dohyo-iri.-Mawashi:...
was
hidari-yotsu, a right hand outside, left hand inside position. His most common winning
kimariteKimarite are winning techniques in a sumo bout. For each bout in a Grand Sumo tournament , a sumo referee, or gyoji, will decide and announce the type of kimarite used by the winner...
was
yorikiri (force out), and he was also fond of
uwatedashinage (pulling overarm throw) and
utchari (ring edge throw), the latter of which he memorably used to defeat
yokozuna Onokuni in September 1988, his first ever
kinboshiKinboshi is a notation used in professional sumo wrestling to record a lower-ranked wrestler's victory over a yokozuna....
. His trademark, however, was
tsuri-dashi(lift out), a technique requiring tremendous strength and seldom seen today due to the increasing weight of wrestlers.
Top division record
See also
External links