Tokushōryū Makoto

Early life and sumo background

Makoto Aoki first tried out sumo at a dojo outside his school when he was a fourth grader in elementary school. He continued into junior high school at another dojo then transferred to Meitoku Gijuku High School, which was well known for its sumo program. In his second year there he took an inter-high school championship and in his third year he was in the top 8 group of high school wrestlers. He entered a management program at Kinki University and also continued amateur sumo. He was not able to reach attain university yokozuna status, but did manage to win some regional championships.

As he was involved in sumo much of his school life, many current and former wrestlers were his teammates during his amateur sumo years at school. At his high school, Tochiōzan was from his year, and Chiyozakura and Dewaōtori were his upper classmen. In university Homarefuji was an upperclassman, and Takarafuji, in his year, was in the same management course as he was.

Career

In his fourth year in university he made the decision to join Kise stable and first stepped into the ring for the January 2009 tournament, along with other contemporaries such as Takarafuji, Kimikaze and Takanoiwa. Despite his successes in amateur sumo, he never achieved student yokozuna status so was not allowed to enter professional sumo at an elevated rank (see makushita tsukedashi) and had to start at the bottom of the ranks.

His skill and experience allowed him a string of winning tournaments from his entry into sumo, and he also took the bottom division jonokuchi championship in his debut tournament, followed by a perfect 7–0 sandanme championship in September of that same year. He was promoted to the makushita division in the November tournament following his championship. He spent all of 2010 in makushita and had only two losing tournaments until reaching makushita 2 in November of that year. Though on the cusp of being promoted to the salaried ranks of jūryō, he only managed a 1–6 record. He changed his ring name from his surname to his current one in January 2011. He spent most of 2011 working his way through makushita much has he had in 2010. On reaching makushita 1 in the September tournament he put in an impressive 5-2 record and achieve promotion to jūryō on his second chance.

In his first jūryō tournament in November 2011 he garnered a lot of attention by winning his first seven bouts, however he lost four in a row after that ending with a 10–5. This was followed by a disastrous 2–13 record for the January 2012 tournament, largely due to a knee injury, which dropped him back to makushita. He fought back with a 4–3 record in the following March tournament and earned re-promotion to jūryō. From this point on he managed to work his way through jūryō posting mostly winning records. This continued up until the May 2013 tournament where he achieved a strong 12-3 record and almost took the jūryō championship only losing it to Kotoyūki on the last day of the tournament. This was still enough to earn him promotion to the top-tier makuuchi division for the July 2013 tournament.

In his first top-tier tournament he managed a 9-6 record, making him the first makuuchi debut wrestler in 2013 to achieve a winning record. In the following two tournaments however, he would get two consecutive losing records, just barely managing to avoid demotion. It remains to be seen if he can achieve a consistent enough performance to remain in the makuuchi ranks. He dropped to the second division in 2014 but was immediately promoted back to makuuchi after posting a 12-3 record. He remained in the top division for the next two years, raching a career high rank of maegashira 4 in May 2015. He then dropped down the banzuke and was relegated again after the September 2016 tournament.

Fighting style

Tokushōryū is a oshi-sumo wrestler, preferring thrusting and pushing (tsuki/oshi) techniques to fighting on the mawashi or belt. His most common winning kimarite are yori-kiri (force out) and oshi-dashi (push out).

Personal life

Tokushōryū was married in June 2016, with the wedding reception to be held in February 2017.