With the retirement ceremony for Kisenosato just over a month away, the NSK has released a career retrospective for Kisenosato on YouTube. It’s a great overview of a long and prosperous career from the first Japanese born Yokozuna in nearly 20 years.
Watching this, I am reminded why I once had a nickname for Kisenosato (before he became Yokozuna). No, not “The Great Pumpkin”, rather – The Dump Truck. Kisenosato was like this relentless machine that would just work and work and work. Work itself ennobled him, even if he was dirty, covered with mud and sand and felt like he should rest. Back into the fray to work some more.
So very moving to see him when he was so young at the start. And so thrilling to see some of those titanic battles with with Hakuho when Kise was in his prime.
Is that a young Giku giving him butsukari at 2:20?
Great digest. I love seeing the early stuff.
Yes, it was. For long time fans, it can give one a bit of a rush of nostalgia.
Thanks very much for sharing this vid, Bruce. It makes me want to turn back the clock so we can watch the big fella’s career (minus the denouement) all over again!
I thought it was very well done, and if anything, they could have put more in there.
When is Kisenosato’s retirement ceremony?
And will we be able to see it?
I suppose that those of us, like me, who came into sumo fandom after 2013 remember Kisenosato as a slow, strong, predictable and effective but rather boring ozeki who then became a chronically absent and injury-wracked yokozuna. Watching this does remind you of how damn good he was in his early prime.
Watching Takayasu now, I wonder if they get pressured into delivering a certain style, after reaching Ozeki, in Tagonoura.
Anyway, doing what Kise has done in the Hakuho-Harumafuji-Kakuryu era is still quite amazing.
I started loving Sumo because of him.
I have a sumo calendar with Kisenosato stretching his arms in a dohyo iri (a spectacular picture), I have to turn the page next week, feel sad about it.