With two of Abi’s stablemates (Seiro and Irodori) joining him as sekitori, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at these wrestlers from Shikoroyama Beya. I promise this has nothing to do with his birthday. (Reading that post, one can see how confused I get with calendars: celebrating Abi’s 5/4 birthday with a crack about Cinco de Mayo, published on 5/6.) I digress..

The stable is run by the former Sekiwake Terao, whose coached one of his first recruits, Homasho, to sekitori status in 2006. But it took a long time, a full seven years before another stablemate, Seiro, joined the professional ranks in 2013. For the next five years he was a steady Juryo regular until late last year when injury knocked him back to Makushita. Seiro’s style is perhaps the polar opposite of Abi, clearly favoring to grapple as yorikiri accounts for a full 34% of his wins, uwatenage accounting for just over 10.5%.

It is coming up roses in 2019 for Shikoroyama as Seiro rejoins Abi as sekitori as well as newcomer Irodori. It will be very interesting to see if Irodori can surpass both Seiro and Abi. Irodori pairs Abi’s favorite tsuppari-driven oshi attack with a very successful tsukidashi rather than the hatakikomi side-stepping which accounts for nearly 20% of Abi’s victories. Physically, he also seems to fit the tadpole mold, like Mitakeumi, Onosho.