Kasugafuji Akihiro

Kasugafuji Akihiro
春日富士 晃大
Personal information
Born	Shoki Iwanaga (1966-02-20) February 20, 1966 Oshika, Miyagi, Japan
Height	1.77 m (5 ft 9 1⁄2 in)
Weight	139 kg (306 lb)
Career
Stable	Kasugayama → Ajigawa
Record	518-542-15
Debut	March, 1981
Highest rank	Maegashira 1 (January, 1990)
Retired	September, 1996
Special Prizes	Fighting Spirit (1)
* Up to date as of Sep. 2012.

Kasugafuji Akihiro (born February 20, 1966 as Shoki Iwanaga^[1]) is a former sumo wrestler and coach from Oshika, Miyagi, Japan. He was an active wrestler in professional sumo from 1981 until 1996, reaching a highest rank of maegashira 1. After his retirement he re-established the Kasugayama stable in 1997 and trained his own wrestlers. He left the Japan Sumo Association in 2012 after an expenses scandal.

Career

He made his professional debut in March 1981, joining Kasugayama stable. He rose slowly through the ranks, having to overcome the disadvantage of being much shorter than most of his competitors at just 1.77 m (5 ft 9 ¹⁄₂ in).^[1] He became a sekitori upon promotion to the second highest juryo division in January 1988. He reached the top makuuchi division in March 1989, reaching his highest rank of maegashira 1 in January 1990.^[2] In the same year his stable closed when his stable-master, former maegashira Ōnobori, retired and he moved to Ajigawa stable. He earned a special prize for Fighting Spirit in July 1990. He fought in the top division for a total of 42 tournaments, making his final appearance in May 1996.

Retirement from sumo

He retired in September 1996 and became an elder of the Japan Sumo Association under the name of Kasugayama Oyakata. He re-established the Kasugayama stable in 1997 and coached the Korean born wrestler Kasugao to the top division in 2003. Kasugao was one of a number of wrestlers force to retire in 2011 because of a match-fixing scandal, and as a result his stable lost its only sekitori. In February 2012 he was elected to the Sumo Association's board of directors,^[3] and as a result stood down from the day-to-day running of the stable. He passed control over to the former Hamanishiki and switched elder names with him, becoming Ikazuchi Oyakata.

He was forced to resign from the Sumo Association in September 2012 in a scandal involving a bogus expense claim to cover up an affair with a female employee of the Association.^[4]

In October 2013 he sued Kasugayama Oyakata (ex-Hamanishiki) for not paying the rent of Kasugayama stable.^[5] Kasugayama counter-sued over ex-Kasugafuji's failure to hand over control of the elder stock (toshiyori-kabu). The case went to trial in July 2014. Ex-Kasugafuji's legal team claimed that in 35 years as a coach (from his retirement as an active wrestler at age 30 to his mandatory retirement as a coach at age 65) he would have earned 430 million yen from the Sumo Association. The two sides settled the stable rent issue in June 2015, with the current Kasugayama agreeing to move to new premises.

Fighting style

Kasugafuji favoured pushing and thrusting (oshi-sumo)techniques and his most common winning kimarite was oshi-dashi.^[1] Although not his preferred style he was also competent on the opponent's mawashi using grappling (yotsu-sumo) techniques.^[1]

Career record

References

External links

• Kasugafuji Akihiro's official biography (English) at the Grand Sumo Homepage