Yokozuna Asashoryu (center) performing the rin...

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Each month that has a sumo tournament, I’ll be writing an article that features a different sumo wrestler. To start off this series, I picked Hakuho, who happens to be my favourite. Help me pick the next wrestler I feature by leaving a comment below!

Some facts:
Rank: Yokozuna
Debuted: March 2001
Date of birth: March 11, 1985
Place of birth: Ulan Bator, Mongolia
Most consecutive wins: 63

Even though his father was a famous Mongolian wrestler, he wasn’t pressured into wrestling because his father wanted him to try other sports, like basketball. However, even from a very early age, he wanted to be a sumo wrestler. Another famous Mongolian sumo wrestler invited him to Japan in 2000 and had to intercede so that a stable would accept him because he was so light (140 lbs).

Hakuho's First Match

Source Japan Probe

Some if his career highlights include being one of the few non-Japanese to reach the rank of Yokozuna and winning a kinboshi award for defeating one of the previous Yokozuna while still being in the lowest Makuuchi division.

He has wrestled as the sole Yokozuna since March 2010 when Asashoryu retired from sumo. He was also involved in a scandal involving gambling over card games in 2010.

He is married and has three children.

His records:

  • second longest consecutive winning streak
  • most wins in a calendar year
Asashoryu & Hakuho

This is a scan of a folder they were giving away at the 2008 Tokyo Tournament we attended in 2008. It features Asashoryu & Hakuho.

Here are a couple of videos showing Hakuho wrestling. The first is when he won his kinboshi in 2004 for defeating the Yokozuna Asashoryu.

This one is longer and has some commentary from Jason in Japan. It is his 63rd consecutive victory, which ties him with Tanikaze for second most consecutive victories. This also shows the television feed since he’s watching in Japan. Kisenosato would defeat him the next day ending his winning streak.

Who should be the next feature wrestler?

I picked three up-and-coming wrestlers in the Juryo division who have been doing well in this tournament. Two of them are so new to Juryo that they don’t have pictures of them wearing their keshoo-mawashi on the goo sumo page.
  1. Ikioi Ikioi
  2. Amuru Amuru
  3. Chiyotairyu Chiyotairyu
So, vote in the comments. If I get a tie you might need to leave more persuasive comments to get me to pick your wrestler. Or you could always bribe other people to leave comments to swing the voting in your favour.
Sources:
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