Takamisugi is now known as Chiganoura Oyakata. He was in the news a few weeks ago during the Takanohana resignation drama as his stable absorbed the former Yokozuna’s stable. It was not the first merger that tied these two together. In early 1993, the Fujishima stable housing a young hotshot, sekiwake Takahanada, folded. Takahanada then changed his shikona to Takanohana on joining the Taganoura home of Takamisugi.
At the time, Takamisugi had just reached the sanyaku after a long, grinding career illustrated in the chart below. Takamisugi had his debut more than a decade before Takanohana and reached sanyaku a few months before the future Super-zuna.
Takamisugi began his nearly 20 year career at the tender age of 15. His progression into the Makuuchi had a few setbacks, taking three years to reach Makushita, and included a brief dip back into makushita…but then a ten year spell in makuuchi before retirement in 1995, not before he was able to see the young Takanohana become the sport’s 65th Yokozuna. You will notice the last little dip into Jonidan is followed by a sharp rise as he won the Jonidan yusho.
I suspect that your love of Sumo would produce quality analysis if only for friends’ consumption; but I sure appreciate being in the loop.
V interesting – so he yo-yo’d between Makuuchi and Juryo (and even briefly back down to Makushita) for like 6 long years before establishing himself as a fixture in Makuuchi, with a top ranking of Komusubi.
Looking at his record on sumodb, the first time he made it up to Komusubi, he was promoted from M6 – he then posts a horrific 2-13 record and promptly gets demoted back down to M11 !! 2 years later, he once again briefly makes Komusubi for a single tournament, this time going 4-11.
Jeez sumo can be a tough, Darwinian gig if you are not one of the top guys! But I guess that’s a big part of why we love it so . . .
It really seems sanyaku is a separate division.
A bit of a history correction: Takanohana’s second stable was Futagoyama, not Tagonoura.
Also, I’m not sure if it’s correct to say that the Fujishima stable folded. Futagoyama was owned by Wakanohana I, and Fujishima was owned by his little brother, Takanohana Kenshi. Wakanohana, the existing Futagoyama oyakata, reached retirement age, and if the merge didn’t occur, it would have been Futagoyama that folded. But of course his little brother preferred taking on the prestigious Futagoyama name than keep the Fujishima name. With five sekitori from the one stable and four from the other stable, both of them have been healthy stables at the time.