Ōtsukasa Nobuhide

Ōtsukasa Nobuhide
皇司 信秀
Personal information
Born	Nobuhide Ōuchi (1971-02-18) February 18, 1971 Hyōgo, Japan
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	149 kg (328 lb)
Career
Stable	Irumagawa
Record	616-660-1
Debut	March, 1993
Highest rank	Maegashira 4 (July, 2001)
Retired	March, 2009
Championships	2 (Jūryō) 1 (Makushita)
* Up to date as of Mar 2009.

Ōtsukasa Nobuhide (born February 18, 1971 as Nobuhide Ōuchi) is a former sumo wrestler from Miki, Hyōgo, Japan. A former amateur champion, he made his professional debut in 1993. The highest rank he reached was maegashira 4. He retired in March 2009 and is now a sumo coach.

Career

Ōtsukasa began sumo whilst at Miki Middle School and was a member of Ichikawa High School's sumo club, where he won national high school sumo championships. He continued his amateur sumo career at Nihon University.

Ōtsukasa was recruited by the former sekiwake Tochitsukasa, also a Nihon University alumni and head of the then newly formed Irumagawa stable. He made his professional debut in March 1993. Due to his amateur achievements he was given makushita tsukedashi status, meaning he could enter in the third highest makushita division. Initially fighting under his real name of Ōuchi, he won the makushita championship in only his second tournament, with a perfect 7-0 record. However, it was not until January 1996 that he became a sekitori by earning promotion to the second highest jūryō division, upon which he adopted the shikona of Ōtsukasa. He made the top makuuchi division for the first time in September 1999. The 39 tournaments it took him from his professional debut to reach makuuchi is the third slowest amongst former collegiate wrestlers.

During his sekitori career (75 tournaments in total) Ōtsukasa was a classic "elevator" rikishi, too good for jūryō but not quite good enough for the top division. He was promoted to makuuchi no less than eleven times in total.^[1] This is two less than the record of 13 promotions held by Oshio, a record Ōtsukasa said he would have liked to break. Ōtsukasa was ranked in the top division for three of the six tournaments held in 2007 but did not manage a majority of wins against losses in makuuchi after July 2004. His last promotion in March 2008 made him the third oldest postwar wrestler to earn promotion to the top division at 37 years. He won his first four bouts on his final return but then lost ten in a row to finish with a 5-10 score.

After the retirement of Kotonowaka in November 2005 he was the oldest man in the sekitori ranks (the top two divisions). Restricted by a shoulder injury, he produced only one winning record after January 2008. After the 2009 Haru basho Ōtsukasa would have dropped out of Juryo (see retirement below). His departure left Tosanoumi, who is two days under a year younger than Ōtsukasa, as the oldest active sekitori.

Fighting style

His most frequently used kimarite or technique was a simple yori-kiri or force out but he also favoured pushing or thrusting moves such as oshi-dashi and tsuki-otoshi, and pull downs such as hataki-komi and hiki-otoshi. At 175 cm or 5 ft 9 in he was one of the shortest wrestlers in the top two divisions.

Retirement from sumo

Ōtsukasa pulled out of the March 2009 tournament on the 13th day win with only one win, facing certain demotion to makushita for the first time since 1998. Before the start of the 14th day's matches he officially announced his retirement from sumo at the age of 38. He said that although he would have liked to have reached a san'yaku rank, he left with no regrets.^[2] He has stayed in the sumo world as a coach at Irumagawa stable, having purchased the toshiyori name of Wakafuji. His danpatsu-shiki, or official retirement ceremony, was held at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan on 30 January 2010.^[3]

Career record

See also

• List of sumo tournament second division champions
• Glossary of sumo terms
• List of past sumo wrestlers

References

External links

• Ōtsukasa Nobuhide's official biography (English) at the Grand Sumo Homepage