Kotokaze Kōki

Career

Scouted by the 53rd Yokozuna Kotozakura, he joined Sadogatake stable in July 1971. He reached the sekitori level in November 1975 upon promotion to the second highest jūryō division and in January 1977 he made his debut in the top makuuchi division. He got as far as sekiwake before suffering a severe injury to his left knee joint which forced him to miss several tournaments and plunge all the way down to the unsalaried makushita division. He made his way back to the top division in just one year. By March 1981 he had returned to sekiwake and in September 1981 he captured his first tournament championship with a 12-3 record, finishing one win ahead of yokozuna Wakanohana II. He was immediately promoted to sumo's second highest rank of ōzeki. He took his second championship in January 1983 with a 14-1 score, beating Asashio in a playoff. In September 1984 he defeated a newcomer to the division who was in contention for the tournament title, the gigantic Konishiki, in a mammoth two-minute struggle on the final day. Kotokaze later recalled this bout as his most memorable ever. In May 1985 he suffered another serious injury, this time to his right knee, and he decided to retire in November 1985 at the age of twenty eight.

After retirement

Kotokaze became an elder of the Sumo Association under the name Oguruma Oyakata. In 1987 he left Sadogatake to set up his own Oguruma stable. He gives all of his new recruits shikona with the suffix "kaze" (wind), taken from his own fighting name. The first wrestler from the stable to achieve sekitori status was Tomikaze in July 2000. As of January 2017, Oguruma stable has three wrestlers with top division experience, Takekaze, Yoshikaze, and Amakaze. Another, Wakakirin, (who originally came from a different stable) was dismissed from the Sumo Association because of cannabis use in February 2009. Oguruma was demoted from his post in the Association as a result. In September 2010, two men were arresting for attempting to blackmail Kotokaze, sending him a letter threatening to reveal his connections to a "violent criminal gang" (usually a euphemism for yakuza) in his younger years. In April 2011 he was hit with another demotion after a jūryō division wrestler from his stable, Hoshikaze, was forced to retire after a match-fixing scandal. However, in February 2012 he was elected to the Sumo Association board of directors.

Kotokaze is also a regular commentator on NHK's sumo tournament broadcasts.

Fighting style

Kotokaze's most common winning kimarite or technique was overwhelmingly a straightforward yori-kiri or force out, which accounted for over half his wins at sekitori level. He favoured hidari-yotsu, or a right hand outside, left hand inside grip on his opponent's mawashi. He very rarely employed throwing moves.