Sumo and The Promotion of Hoshoryu Tomokatsu to Yokozuna

Hoshoryu in January 2022 (courtesy of Wikipedia)

I love sumo. I’ve been watching and following the sport since the November 2017 basho (tournament) when I discovered that through our new cable provider we got NHK, the Japanese English-language broadcast channel. Many of my favorite rikishi (wrestlers) from that time have since retired: Tochinoshin, Hakuho, Ikioi, Yoshikaze, Chiyonokuni, but there are always new rikishi climbing the ranks to reach the top makuuchi division.

On the last day of the January 2025 sumo tournament, the Hatsu Basho, I got to watch my current favorite rikishi, Hoshoryu (ho-SHO-ryu), win the championship and earn promotion to the rank of yokozuna, the apex of the sport.

This promotion was, however, not without controversy.

To begin, sumo is not just a sport. It is half sport, half religious ceremony, and a tradition that goes back more than two hundred years in Japan. Everything from the wrestlers’ topknots to their mawashi (belts) and the referee’s uniforms and the ceremonies are much as they would have been centuries ago. Women are still not allowed in the dohyo, the center ring in which the wrestlers compete.

In a sport that is so old and so concretized, so inextricably tied to Japanese culture and its rigid hierarchies, it should not come as a surprise that much comes down to custom and much is subjective.

Take the promotion of a wrestler to the highest rank of yokozuna.

Yokozuna, the highest rank, is one of the five ranks in the top makuuchi division. The others are, in order of seniority, ozeki, sekiwake, komusubi, and maegashira.

Makuuchi is one of only two sumo divisions in which wrestlers earn a salary (the other is the second division juryo). Only 42 rikishi compete in the top division and the competition to reach the salaried levels is fierce. Only 70 of the approximately 650 current active wrestlers therefore earn a salary.

To earn promotion to yokozuna requires the recommendation of the Yokozuna Deliberation Council. The YDC is an advisory body to the Japan Sumo Association made up of prominent Japanese citizens with a deep knowledge of and passion for sumo. Japan Sumo Association members (all former rikishi and current coaches) are not allowed to serve on the YDC. The Yokozuna Deliberation Council recommends an ozeki for promotion if he wins two yusho (championships) in a row or puts up results equivalent to a tournament championship.

You can see the trouble already wherein “results equivalent to a tournament victory” is highly subjective.

As it turns out, the two-championship rule is also a fairly recent and subjective rule.

Hoshoryu, who was runner-up in November and won the January tournament, was recommended for promotion and subsequently promoted to yokozuna after the January tournament.

Much ink, mostly in the comments section of various YouTube videos, has already been spilled about Hoshoryu’s promotion.

Some said he shouldn’t be promoted because he hadn’t met the informal de facto criteria of two consecutive yusho (championships) at the rank of ozeki.

Some said he wasn’t deserving at the time simply because his performance at ozeki in general and in the January tournament had been allegedly lackluster. Still others said his poor performance in the March tournament (his first as yokozuna)—attributed by the man himself to an injured right elbow—was further proof that his promotion had been rushed to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of the then sole yokozuna, Terunofuji, during the January tournament.

While it is still far too early to reflect on a yokozuna career that has not yet happened, it is possible to reflect on the circumstances of Hoshoryu’s promotion by comparing his promotion to those of the other thirty-three yokozuna promoted since the creation of the Yokozuna Deliberation Council in 1950.

I am incredibly biased in Hoshoryu’s favor. He’s my favorite rikishi. However, I can say without a doubt that Hoshoryu’s promotion was right and proper, as historical precedence shows.

Thirty-five yokozuna have been promoted since the YDC was formed in 1950. Of these, thirteen won two consecutive yusho (championships), twelve had consecutive yusho and a runner-up performance (jun-yusho), five had consecutive jun-yusho, three were promoted after winning only one yusho, and two were promoted after only one jun-yusho.

The two yusho rule originates from 1986 and the promotion of Futahaguro. The sumo association was eager to promote another yokozuna to compete with the then-dominant Chiyonofuji (one of the all-time greats) and so the YDC recommended Futahaguro, whose only accomplishment had been two consecutive runner-up performances.

Such a recommendation was not without precedent. Asashio was promoted in 1959 after two consecutive jun-yusho but he had previously won two yusho as ozeki. Wakanohana II was promoted in 1978 after two consecutive jun-yusho but he as well had won a previous yusho as an ozeki. Mienoumi was promoted in 1979 after two consecutive jun-yusho and he had won a yusho as a sekiwake.

What made Futahaguro unique was that unlike any previous yokozuna he had never won a single top division championship in his career.

Hindsight says it was a hasty decision.

Futahaguro achieved three jun-yusho as yokozuna and his stablemaster (coach) handed in his retirement papers without consulting him after accusations of assault against other stablemates.

After Futahaguro, starting with the promotion of Asahifuji in 1990, it was an informal rule that an ozeki had to win two consecutive yusho to earn promotion. This achievement was actually quite rare. Indeed, of the twenty-six yokozuna promoted between 1950 and 1990, only for had won consecutive yusho. Eight had consecutive jun-yusho and yusho. The promotions of the remaining ten yokozuna promoted with consecutive jun-yusho, a single yusho, or a single jun-yusho all date to the period before 1990.

Although seen as a disaster, Futahaguro’s promotion was not out of the ordinary by any stretch of the imagination. He was, after all, one of five yokozuna promoted after consecutive jun-yusho, although the difference was that he had never won a yusho.

What followed the 1990 rule were eight promotions from 1990 to 2012 only of rikishi winning two consecutive yusho at the rank of ozeki.

Then in 2014, Kakuryu was promoted after consecutive yusho and jun-yusho. In 2017, Kisenosato, the first Japanese yokozuna promoted since Wakanohana in 1998, was promoted after a yusho and a 12-3 jun-yusho. Then in 2021, Terunofuji was promoted after a yusho and jun-yusho.

Then came Hoshoryu. He was runner-up in November 2024 with a record of 13-2 and won the January tournament with a record of 12-3 in regulation (each tournament is fifteen bouts) but also won two back-to-back playoff bouts on the last day (which means he actually had three bouts and three victories on the last day).

And he had previously won one yusho as sekiwake.

Had the retiring chairman of the Yokozuna Deliberation Council expressed his desire to elevate a rikishi to yokozuna before he left?

Yes.

Had the sole yokozuna Terunofuji retired mid-tournament in January leaving a vacuum at the top?

Yes.

Does the JSA not like having tournaments without yokozuna?

Yes.

None of this matters.

Hoshoryu satisfied the subjective, arbitrary requirements of the Yokozuna Deliberation Council, of a championship and an equivalent performance, which had only arbitrarily chosen to adopt the two-yusho rule in 1990 after promoting yokozuna with various records for forty years.

Hoshoryu equaled or surpassed the record of twenty-two of the thirty-five yokozuna promoted since 1950. Yokozuna is a rank defined not only by winning but by unmeasurable qualities such as dignity.

Just this month another rikishi, Onosato, a prodigy by all accounts, was recommended for promotion to yokozuna. His was the quickest rise to the top rank from debut in the history of the sport. He won two consecutive yusho.

Those who disagree with the subjective decision to promote Hoshoryu in all likelihood agree with the subjective decision to promote Onosato just as they likely agreed with the subjective, politically-motivated decision to sweep his bullying and hazing scandal under the rug, the same type of bullying behavior that has cost other less talented wrestlers their careers. (Infamously, Asashoryu and Harumafuji, both Mongolian yokozuna, were forced to retire after committing assault; both situations were complex and fraught with political infighting within the JSA).

This is the world of sumo. Tradition, politics, hierarchy, inconsistency, hypocrisy.

The two new yokozuna couldn’t be more different.

Onosato, the young Japanese prodigy with unmatched speed and power who was only able to win two consecutive yusho as ozeki and become yokozuna because his bullying scandal (not the first or the last in sumo which has a problem with bullying) was ignored by the JSA.

Hoshoryu, the Mongolian with a talent for throws and leg trips, who matched the record of the three yokozuna promoted before him, who had a terrible basho in March of this year going 5 wins, 5 losses, 5 absences due to injury before coming back to a 12-3 jun-yusho in May and soundly beating the champion Onosato on the last day of the May basho to reclaim his yokozuna pride and dash the champion’s hopes of a zensho-yusho, a perfect 15-0 record.

Just watch their final day bout: Hoshoryu vs Onosato May Basho Day 15

Those with a short memory, with no knowledge of sumo history will forever be frustrated by developments in the sport. They hold up a thirty-five year old informal rule as if it has existed forever and fail to realize that sumo is a religious ritual that never changes as well as a sport that can and does change and is subject to all the petty whims and foibles that plague any human endeavor.

There is no doubt that sumo chews up and spits out the unpaid wrestlers that make up the vast majority of the sport, the less glamorous side of sumo, but even for the hundreds of low-rank rikishi and for the fans and Japan as a whole, the sport in the top division is glorious, the stadium electric, the rivalries epic.

Don’t believe me?

Watch this match from January 2008 between two of the best yokozuna: Asashoryu, Hoshoryu’s uncle, and Hakuho, the greatest of the all-time great rikishi.

This is the hope for Hoshoryu and Onosato. A rivalry for the ages between two dominant yokozuna. All I have to do now is wait and watch.

I believe time will show his critics that Hoshoryu was in no way undeserving of promotion and I hope that Onosato can grow and fully move beyond his past behavior to embody the strength and dignity that I believe Hoshoryu already exhibits. A rikishi is not only a yokozuna in the ring. All the hours and days outside the dohyo count as much if not more.

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My yokozuna research:

Total since 1950 - 35

Two yusho (13)

Tochinishiki (1955)

Taiho (1961)

Kitanofuji (1970)

Kotozakura (1973)

Asahifuji (1990, previously 5 consecutive jun-yushu)

Akebono (1993)

Takanohana (1995, previously consecutive yusho and jun-yusho)

Wakanohana (1998, previously consecutive yusho and jun-yusho)

Musashimaru (1999, previously consecutive yusho and jun-yusho)

Asashoryu (2003, previously consecutive jun-yusho)

Hakuho (2007, previously consecutive yusho and jun-yusho)

Harumafuji (2012)

Onosato (2025)

One yusho, one jun-yusho (12)

Kagamisato (1953)

Wakanohana I (1958)

Sadanoyama (1965)

Wajima (1973)

Kitanoumi (1974)

Chiyonofuji (1981)

Takanosato (1983)

Hokutoumi (1987)

Kakuryu (2014, yusho and playoff jun-yusho)

Kisenosato (2017, yusho and 12-3 jun-yusho)

Terunofuji (2021, yusho at sekiwake, yusho at ozeki, jun-yusho)

Hoshoryu (2025, 13-2 jun-yusho, 12-3-PP yusho)

Two jun-yusho (5)

Asashio (1959, previously 2 yusho at ozeki)

Wakanohana II (1978, previously 1 yusho at ozeki)

Mienoumi (1979, previously 1 yusho at sekiwake)

Futahaguro (1986)

Onokuni (1987, previously 1 yusho at ozeki; 1 yusho immediately before 2 jun-yusho)

One yusho (3)

Chiyonoyama (1951, previously two yusho at ozeki)

Yoshibayama (1954, previously two jun-yusho at ozeki)

Tochinoumi (1964, previously 1 yusho at sekiwake)

One jun-yusho (2)

Kashiwado (1961, previously consecutive yusho and jun-yusho at ozeki)

Tamanoumi (1970, previously 2 yusho at ozeki and consecutive yusho/jun-yusho at ozeki)