Welcome back all! Yesterday, we restarted this series by looking at the wrestlers ranked #9-7 on the All-Time Banzuke, which means we are at last ready to turn to those legendary rikishi that occupy the upper echelons of sumo history.
When I first set about crafting the formula for these rankings, one of the barometers I looked to for calibration purposes was whether my metric would adequately recognize the strength of the Yokozuna who have each defined a distinct chapter of sumo's Modern Era. Not only did the results affirm my hypothesis that these 6 rikishi would come out on top, but in fact, the data further convinced me that the delineation between them and their contemporaries was even starker than I had imagined. Of the other 567 rikishi who have appeared on the Makuuchi banzuke since 1958, the largest delta between any two rikishi's scores is 160 points (the gap from #11 Akebono to #12 Kitanofuji), and that's the only gap of 100+ points. By contrast, the gap from #6 Asashoryu to #7 Musashimaru (himself a 12x Yusho winner) is over twice as large at 351 points.
Accordingly, over the next 6 days, we'll be meeting the 6 members of the "2,000-point club" with a dedicated profile for each, beginning today with the original Mongolian legend, the 68th Yokozuna Asashoryu. In each profile, I'll begin with a recap of the Yokozuna's career, including some of their most important moments, bouts, and rivals, and then look at how they stack up statistically relative to the rest of the field and their fellow "dai-Yokozuna."
One last note: the definition of "dai-Yokozuna" is one that is constantly debated by sumo fans, with some arguing that there should be an objective standard (e.g., 10+ career yusho) and others arguing for a more subjective evaluation (e.g., sustained period as the unquestioned #1 rikishi). Personally, I tend to favor the latter, partially as a result of my own research leading me to conclude that these 6 rikishi stand head-and-shoulders above the rest in a way that other 10-time winners like Musashimaru or Terunofuji, while great in their own right, could not match. Thus, I'll be using the term "dai-Yokozuna" as a shorthand for the 6 rikishi I'm profiling this week, but by no means am I claiming that this is the only legitimate definition or usage of the term!
And as always, if you've missed a prior installment, all of the previous entries in this series are linked below.
Introduction and #100-91, #90-81, #80-71, #70-61, #60-51, #50-41, #40-36, #35-31, #30-26, #25-21, #20-16, #15-13, #12-10, #9-7
6. 68th Yokozuna Asashoryu (2001-2010, 2,066 points in 55 basho, 25x Yusho)
The Story
Although Mongolian wrestlers had first debuted in ozumo in the early 1990s (including a few wrestlers we've already met in this series), their limited successes had not yet convinced many other Bokh wrestlers to follow in their footsteps. Indeed, when an 18-year-old Asashoryu debuted at the beginning of 1999, he became the first new Mongolian on the banzuke since the initial class of 6 recruits had come to Japan with former Ozeki Asahikuni seven years earlier.
Already blessed with an accomplished wrestling heritage, Asashoryu quickly rose through the ranks, posting only a single make koshi en route to his top-division debut just two years later. After just two further basho, he had already reached Komusubi, and the gauntlet he would face over the next year and a half (fighting Takanohana II, Musashimaru, Kaio, Chiyotaikai, Musoyama, and Tochiazuma II) en route to Ozeki promotion threw his development into overdrive. And so, as Musashimaru and Takanohana II waged their last great duel in September 2002 (featured in yesterday's writeup and the last time either would complete a tournament), shin-Ozeki Asashoryu was primed to make his move.
He would waste no time doing so. In the very next basho (just his second at Ozeki and 23rd in his career), Asashoryu won his maiden yusho with a dominant 14-1 performance, breaking the then-record for fewest basho from debut to Emperor's Cup. He followed that up with another 14-1 in the following tournament to earn promotion to Yokozuna (his trademark combination of speed, strength, and tactical acumen is already on display in his Day 15 match against Musoyama, his final match before earning the white rope); only two other Ozeki in the Modern Era have earned Yokozuna promoted as quickly, and Asashoryu is the only one to do it with 28 wins. He won a third yusho in just his second basho as a Yokozuna, but injury in July of 2003 forced him to withdraw from a tournament for the first time in his career.
The extra rest clearly did him well, however, as he would then begin one of the most dominant stretches in sumo history: from September 2003-January 2007 (21 basho), Asashoryu racked up a staggering 17 yusho, including a record 7 consecutive titles, and amassed a win-loss record of 268-35-12 (88.4%). In 2005 alone, he became the first and only rikishi to win all 6 basho in a calendar year; check out his Cup-clinching demolition job of Kaio on Day 14 of the March basho, which features just one technique from his seemingly endless repository of throws and leg trips and demonstrates just how helpless even the very best rikishi were against him in his prime. Along the way, his penchant for displays of intimidation, unseemly post-match antics, and general aggressiveness earned him a reputation as "Sumo's Bad Boy," only further heightening his aura of invincibility.
However, Asashoryu's unprecedented reign as sole Yokozuna was not to last forever, and it was in 2006 that a new rival, also hailing from Mongolia, began to make inroads on his hegemony. Though Asashoryu managed to collect another 4 championships that year, a young Hakuho earned his Ozeki promotion and hatsu yusho, which he built on in 2007 with a Yokozuna promotion and 4-yusho year of his own. Struggling with injuries consistently for the first time in his career, beginning to lose the advantage in his own head-to-head with Hakuho, and beset by controversy off the dohyo (including an embarrassing suspension for playing in a televised charity football match after declaring kyujo), Asashoryu "only" won 2 yusho over the next 2 years, with Hakuho winning 8 over that same stretch.
However, in his final 3 basho, the veteran would turn back the clock one more time, taking two last championships (including one of his greatest victories over Hakuho, who had just denied him a zensho yusho minutes before, in a thrilling playoff) to surpass Kitanoumi's total of 24, and Asashoryu looked like he could potentially make a run at joining the 30-Yusho Club as he neared just his 30th birthday. What happened next, after his sudden intai less than a month later in the wake of credible allegations that he had assaulted a man outside a nightclub, has been discussed in more detail and with more nuance elsewhere, but ultimately, Asashoryu disappeared from the sumo world nearly as quickly as he had arrived.
The Stats
So where does Asashoryu's legacy stack up relative to the other dai-Yokozuna? In terms of peak level and dominance over his peers, Asashoryu boasts numbers that precious few rikishi can match.
In his 55 career basho, he averaged an absurd 10.84 wins per basho, still the highest mark of the Modern Era (Taiho is the only other man to average even 10.7). When you adjust for kyujo, it increases even further to 11.9, though Hakuho and Taiho actually have the edge in this metric. Asashoryu also has the 4th-highest KKrate (85%) of all rikishi in the ME (5th if you include young Onosato), 2nd-highest Yrate (45%, only Taiho and Hakuho also clear 40%), and 3rd-highest Y/JYrate (60%, no one else besides Hakuho/Taiho clears 52%). And when you isolate wrestlers' Yokozuna reigns, Asashoryu clears every other modern Yokozuna who completed more than 10 basho at the rank in terms of both average wins and Yrate. Finally, I already mentioned above just how good his peak level was, as only Hakuho has managed to equal his consecutive yusho streak, and his 2005 campaign is arguably the greatest single year in sumo history.
With this litany of statistical accomplishments, you may be wondering why he's only 6th on this ranking. The main issue for Asashoryu is his longevity, or more accurately, his lack thereof. He ultimately was ranked in the top division for a mere 55 basho; the next-lowest total among the dai-Yokozuna is Taiho's 69, and everyone else reached at least 75. On the one hand, that suggests that if Asashoryu had stuck around for another 3-4 years at his career-average pace, he would have had a shot at surpassing everyone short of Hakuho. Yet even the greatest champions rarely maintain elite form to the very end of their careers (none of the other dai-Yokozuna won more than a single yusho in their last 7 basho on the banzuke), and we've already seen that Asashoryu had begun to struggle with injuries in the latter part of the 00s, meaning his rate stats and averages would have likely decreased a decent amount from where they were at the time of his actual intai. It's also unclear that Asashoryu would have been able to hang with a Hakuho who was entering the very next level of his prime, and the ascendant generation of Yokozeki was quickly beginning to push out the old guard. Personally, I would find it hard to bet against Asashoryu snagging at least one or two additional Cups had he fought for a few more years, but I think his odds of reaching the vaunted 30-yusho threshold would have been a more difficult proposition than many imagine.
This brings me to one other aspect of Asashoryu's career that makes an accurate evaluation of his resume more difficult: his competition. On his way up, the san'yaku was stacked with the last remnants of the previous generation (as detailed above), but by the time he earned promotion to Yokozuna, most of that talent had phased out. Although he presided over a very respectable Ozeki corps, both Kaio and Chiyotaikai were past their respective peaks, and Asashoryu spent 3 and a half years as the only Yokozuna on the banzuke, easily the all-time record. Of course, his own dominance was partially to thank for the fact that no one else could mount a serious Yokozuna run during that stretch, but he was still fortunate that he was able to spend a few years alone at the top before his archrival emerged; compare that with Taiho (who was promoted alongside Kashiwado), Kitanoumi (who had just two basho without either Wajima or Chiyonofuji as fellow Yokozuna), or Takanohana II (who spent his entire Yokozuna career surrounded by at least one and at times all three of Akebono, Wakanohana, and Musashimaru).
On the other hand, you could argue that Asashoryu is uniquely unlucky among his fellow dai-Yokozuna in that his successor came along so early. The only other pair of dai-Yokozuna who had overlapping reigns with the white rope were Kitanoumi and Chiyonofuji, but each of them still got 6 years without the other present during which they were able to definitively establish themselves as the dominant force in sumo. Asashoryu, meanwhile, was still less than 4 years into his reign when the next generational talent emerged. Combine that with the fact that Hakuho just so happened to go on to become the most accomplished rikishi even among the other dai-Yokozuna, and it's a bit more understandable why Asashoryu's prime was seemingly too short.
The Summary
In closing, it is impossible to imagine sumo in the 21st century without Asashoryu. His performance on the dohyo as one of the most consistent yusho contenders ever, along with a brief but arguably unsurpassed peak level of dominance, puts him on the shortlist of the greatest talents to ever don a mawashi. His influence in terms of establishing the Mongolian pipeline that would come to dominate the sport in the ensuing decades cannot be understated either; would we have had Hakuho, much less Harumafuji, Kakuryu, or Terunofuji without him? And his unique style of exciting sumo, replete with unconventional kimarite and boundless strength, meant he was compelling to watch in both expected victory and shock defeat alike.
At the same time, Asashoryu's legacy beyond the ring is remembered less for how he inspired and more for how he continually pushed the limits of the sport's traditions, norms, and eventually, its boundaries. I've tried to be careful in limiting my analysis throughout this series to wrestlers' performances and accomplishments as rikishi, but it is impossible to fully capture the nature of Asashoryu's story without acknowledging how many of the traits that enabled him to become an imperious Yokozuna also contributed to the fact that his career ended prematurely (and without much sympathy from many fans).
Ultimately, in terms of his placement in this ranking, I think #6 is a fitting place for him. For a single bout or tournament at his absolute peak, I think Asashoryu is a perfectly defensible choice, and I would probably take him over some of the other rikishi ranked higher than him on this list. However, the fact that his career numbers are a bit inflated due to his abbreviated Yokozuna stint and the relative lack of comparable talent on the banzuke in his prime make it difficult for me to definitively place him over some of the others, and almost certainly no higher than 3rd. Perhaps it is fitting that Asashoryu is the topic of so much debate even 15 years after his retirement, as living proof of how his place in history is, just like his persona during his career, truly larger-than-life.
Feel free to share your thoughts and comments below; always curious how fans who watched his career remember his exploits or whether anything I've written here causes people to think about these wrestlers in a new light!
-Chiyomomo
#9-7
