Today is Wakatakakage Atsushi’s birthday!

Indeed, Wakatakakage started is career benefitting from the sandanme tsukedashi system. He quickly rose through the ranks and reached juryo in May 2018. He nicely settled there, and entered sumo’s top division nine tournaments later, in November 2019.

His record there is unique: he stayed undefeated the first four days, but left the dohyo limping, after having defeated Terutsuyoshi. He did not show up on day 5, and ended up the basho with a 4-1-10 record. Demotion resulted, despite having not lost one single bout on the dohyo!

The only rikishi having achieved something similar is Towanoyama, who gave a fusen loss on day 1 in March 2002. He also returned straight back to juryo following his makuuchi debut, but did not win or show up at all.

Going back to Wakatakakage – he’s the youngest Onami brother, from Arashio beya. Earlier this year, we celebrated Wakamotoharu’s birthday. In case you wonder, the third brother, Wakatakamoto, is born on December 29th!

Wakatakakage is born on December the 6th of 1994. Happy birthday!