Daiju Hisateru - Career

Career

Born in Setana, he joined the small Takashima stable run by former ōzeki Mitsuneyama in March 1965. He reached the top makuuchi division in May 1970 after winning the jūryō division championship with a 14-1 record. He was awarded the Technique Prize in his first top division tournament. He was to win a total of eleven special prizes in his career, which at the time was second only to Tsurugamine's fourteen. His six prizes for Technique put him in equal sixth place on the all-time list, as of 2009. In March 1971 he made his san'yaku debut at sekiwake and defeated his first yokozuna, Taihō.

He earned promotion to ōzeki in 1973 after three consecutive double figure scores. He was a runner-up in the May 1973 tournament to Wajima with a score of 11-4 and defeated two more yokozuna, Kotozakura and Kitanofuji (the latter for the first time in twelve attempts). He did even better in July, defeating Kitanofuji again and finishing in third place on 13-2. He had a clean sweep of all three special prizes, the first wrestler ever to achieve this, and ōzeki promotion was confirmed. However, he was unable to prove himself worthy of champion rank. He had to pull out injured from his debut ōzeki tournament and held the rank for only five tournaments before being demoted. He was never able to return, and though he remained at sekiwake for four tournaments he then fell back to the maegashira ranks.

After a 4-11 score in March 1977 he finished his career back in the jūryō division, the first former ōzeki ever to compete a such a low rank. After three straight losses he pulled out of the May 1977 tournament and announced his retirement at the age of just 27.

Read more about this topic:  Daiju Hisateru

Famous quotes containing the word career:

    I restore myself when I’m alone. A career is born in public—talent in privacy.
    Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)

    From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.
    Robert Benchley (1889–1945)

    John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)