is a Japanese professional
sumo
is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a ''rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring (''dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by th ...
wrestler from
Kumamoto
is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. , the city has an estimated population of 738,907 and a population density of 1,893 people per km2. The total area is 390.32 km2.
had a populat ...
. He made his debut in 2003, and reached the top division eleven years later in 2014. His highest rank has been 1. He has been a runner-up in one tournament, and has won three
special prizes for Fighting Spirit and one
gold star for defeating a . Sadanoumi has fought in the most tournaments among current -ranked wrestlers .
He wrestles for
Sakaigawa stable.
Early life and sumo background
Matsumura was born the oldest son of
Sadanoumi Kōji, a sumo wrestler active in the 1980s who reached the rank of . Although he has no memories of his father as a wrestler, since the latter retired when Matsumura was 1 year old,
he aspired to follow in his father's footsteps since he was three years old.
Matsumura is nevertheless familiar with the sumo world since his father, under the
name
A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A person ...
of Tagonoura, was a coach at
Dewanoumi stable
is a heya (sumo), stable of sumo wrestlers, part of the Dewanoumi ''Glossary of sumo terms#ichimon, ichimon'' or group of stables. It has a long, prestigious history. Its current head coach is former ''maegashira'' Oginohana Akikazu, Oginohana. ...
and his family regularly attended the 's after parties.
On the advice of his father, he began to discover other sports such as
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
but upon graduation from junior high school in 2003 he joined
Sakaigawa stable on his father's advice,
that particular stable being founded by former
Ryōgoku
is a district in Sumida, Tokyo. It is surrounded by various districts in Sumida, Chūō, and Taitō wards: Yokoami, Midori, Chitose, Higashi Nihonbashi, and Yanagibashi.
History
In 1659, the Ryōgoku Bridge was built, spanning the Sumida ...
who had himself been a protege of the senior Sadanoumi.
Career
From the January 2004 tournament, he took the surname of his father. Being a lighter wrestler, he struggled to succeed for a number of years, but in November 2007 he managed to take the division championship with a perfect 7–0 record. This championship catapulted him from 44 into the third division at the rank of 27. Despite this achievement he would struggle in for 3 more years until January 2010 when he took his second championship with another 7–0 record. This would put him in upper where after two tournaments he was promoted to the salaried ranks of for the first time, along
Kaisei, in July 2010. This was the first time in 14 years that the son of a former was promoted to himself; the last time being the father and son
Tochiazuma Tomoyori and
Tochiazuma Daisuke
Tochiazuma Daisuke (born November 9, 1976, as Daisuke Shiga in Tokyo, Japan) is a retired sumo wrestler. He began his professional career in 1994, reaching the top division just two years later after winning a tournament championship in each of ...
. Sadanoumi's promotion is also the ninth time in sumo history that a father and son have both attained the rank of . Sadanoumi lasted eight tournaments in the division before being demoted again, sitting out his last tournament in with a dislocated ankle. As before he began to struggle again in and would remain there for twelve tournaments before working his way back up and finally re-entering in January 2014.
This time around he found his stride quickly and was able to rise through in only two tournaments with two strong performances. He was promoted to the top division in May 2014. He earned a 10–5 record and the Fighting Spirit prize. Sumo historians noted that Sadanoumi had repeated his father's same impressive achievement of earning the Fighting Spirit prize in his debut 34 years earlier in 1980.
For a few tournaments after his debut, when he appeared in the ring entering ceremony, Sadanoumi wore a with the official Kumamoto prefectural mascot
Kumamon
Kumamon is a mascot created by the government of Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. It was created in 2010 for a campaign created to draw tourists to the region after the Kyushu Shinkansen line opened. Kumamon subsequently became nationally popular, an ...
on it to promote his home prefecture. Sadanoumi wore the again at the May 2016 tournament to show his support for the disaster victims of the
2016 Kumamoto earthquakes
The were a series of earthquakes, including a magnitude 7.0 mainshock which struck at 01:25 Japan Standard Time, JST on April 16, 2016 (16:25 UTC on April 15) beneath Kumamoto, Kumamoto City of Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu, Kyu ...
.
Sadanoumi has a chronic disease of the cornea which severely limits his vision. In order to avoid risky surgery he wears special hard contacts every night that dramatically improve his vision for the following day.
He first fought all the top wrestlers ranked at 2 in the March 2015 tournament and posted a respectable 7–8 score that kept him ranked high enough to face all the top competition in the following tournament, where he scored his first for defeating
Harumafuji and posted a winning record of 8–7, also beating the eventual tournament champion,
Terunofuji
) is a Mongolian-Japanese former professional sumo wrestler. Wrestling for the Isegahama stable (2007), Isegahama stable, he entered professional sumo in January 2011 and took the second division ''jūryō'' championship in his debut as a ''seki ...
. He was nominated for the
Outstanding Performance Prize, normally given to those who beat the tournament champion or a and manage a winning record, but there was opposition since he posted a bare minimum winning record with one win by default and the prize was not awarded. Nonetheless he was promoted to his highest rank to date of 1 for the July 2015 tournament. Since then his results have been disappointing and he slid down the ranks with seven consecutive or losing scores from July 2015 to July 2016. He was able to get a winning record in September 2016 with an 8–7, however he got another losing record in the November 2016 tournament, scoring only 3–12 which was his worst record to date in the top division. He was demoted to the division after the March 2017 tournament, breaking a run of 18 straight tournaments at a rank, the longest amongst active wrestlers. However, a 9–6 record at the rank of 1 East was enough for an immediate return to the top division. He missed the first five days of the September 2017 tournament because of an injury to his right leg, and although he entered from Day 6, he could not prevent demotion to . In March 2018 he won the division championship with an 11–4 record, beating
Akiseyama in a playoff, to ensure his return to . Upon reaching his thirties, Sadanoumi began to consult doctors and specialists to condition his body to fight as long as possible, he himself wanting to fight until 40 years old.
Despite never rising higher than 8 he remained in the top division until January 2021. After four tournaments in he returned to in November 2021. In May 2022 he scored eleven wins against four losses to share runner-up honours alongside
Takanoshō and
Daieishō, and received his second Fighting Spirit Prize and first since 2014. In November 2022, Sadanoumi won his match against
Shōdai. This match was the first time in three years that the two Kumamoto natives faced each other.
In October 2023, Sadanoumi was the active -ranked wrestler with the most tournaments to his name, with 122 since his professional debut in 2003. On this subject he regularly jokes with
Tamawashi, who has tallied 117 tournaments since his debut in 2004 and is the oldest active (at 38); the two debating who is the other's senior.
[ In the May 2024 tournament, Sadanoumi scored the seven-hundredth victory of his career against former Shōdai, making him the third active wrestler with the most victories to his name.
After conceding eleven defeats in November 2024, Sadanoumi lost his status as a wrestler when the for the first tournament of 2025 was published. Having regained his status at the following tournament, Sadanoumi went on a winning-record at the May tournament of the same year, taking a two-digit victory score for the first time in three years. Still the second oldest wrestler in the division, he also recorded the 1,500th match and 400th victory of his career. Sadanoumi was congratulated by the former Wakanohana, then a sports commentator, who praised his mobility as "better than that of the younger generation". On the final day of the tournament, it was announced that Sadanoumi would be the recipient of an unconditional third Fighting Spirit prize.
]
Fighting style
Sadanoumi is a wrestler who prefers grappling techniques to pushing or thrusting. His favored grip on his opponent's or belt is , a left hand outside, right hand inside position. His most common winning is yori-kiri, a straightforward force out, which accounts for around 40 per cent of his victories. He is also fond of (overarm throw). In his twentieth professional year, Sadanoumi began taking Jujutsu
Jujutsu ( , or ), also known as jiu-jitsu and ju-jitsu (both ), is a Japanese martial art and a system of close combat that can be used in a defensive or offensive manner to kill or subdue one or more weaponless or armed and armored opponent ...
lessons and trained with karateka
(; ; Okinawan pronunciation: ), also , is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tī'' in Okinawan) under the influence of Chinese martial arts. While moder ...
kas. A martial influence he attributes to the period of confinement associated with COVID that forced him to rethink his style.
Personal life
Sadanoumi was married in June 2017 to a nurse who lives nearby his , after a five-year relationship. Around 600 guests attended their wedding ceremony. The couple has three children, two girls and a boy. He is also a big baseball fan and a supporter since his early elementary school days of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows
The Tokyo Yakult Swallows () are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams in Tokyo, the other being the Yomiuri G ...
.
Career record
See also
*List of sumo tournament top division runners-up
The table below lists the runners up ('' jun-yusho'') in the top ''makuuchi'' division at official sumo tournaments or ''honbasho'' since the six tournaments per year system was instituted in 1958. The runner up is determined by the wrestler(s) w ...
*List of sumo tournament second division champions
This is a list of wrestlers who have won the sumo second division ''jūryō'' championship since 1909, when the current championship system was established. These official tournaments are held exclusively in Japan.
The wrestler who has won the mo ...
*List of active gold star earners
is a notation used in professional sumo wrestling to record a lower-ranked (''maegashira'') wrestler's victory over a ''yokozuna''.
It is believed that the term stems from the usage of the terms ''shiroboshi'' (lit: white star) to designate a b ...
*
*List of active sumo wrestlers
The following is an alphabetical list of all active professional sumo wrestlers in the top ''makuuchi'' division, and all those currently in lower divisions who have a Wikipedia article. Please refer to professional sumo divisions for more informa ...
* Active special prize winners
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadanoumi, Takashi
1987 births
Living people
Matsumura family
Japanese sumo wrestlers
Sportspeople from Kumamoto
Sumo people from Kumamoto Prefecture