Ryūden Gōshi
Ryūden Gōshi is a Japanese professional sumo wrestler from Kōfu, Yamanashi Prefecture. He made his professional debut in March 2006 and first reached the top makuuchi division in January 2018. Ryūden has won a championship in every division except makuuchi and has earned two special prizes, one for Fighting Spirit and one for Technique. His highest rank has been komusubi. He is a member of Takadagawa stable.
Early career and background
As a first grader at Ikeda Elementary School, he followed his two older brothers and took up the sport of judo. He continued to practice at Kai Shiritsu Ryūō Junior High School in the nearby town of Kai, where he won the Yamanashi prefectural judo tournament in the over-90 kilos category. Destined to join the judo club of a prestigious high school outside his native prefecture, he was however persuaded in his second year of junior high school by Sendagawa-oyakata, a coach at Takadagawa stable who was visiting his school to scout new apprentices, to give sumo a try, telling him he would "become a man among men". He made his debut in March 2006, the same tournament as Tochinoshin and Sakaizawa. He was immediately given the shikona, or ring name, Ryūden, with the "Ryū" part taken from his previous school and the "den" part from the legendary wrestler Raiden. He was talked of, alongside Masunoyama, as a candidate for the first wrestler born in the Heisei era to reach the sekitori status when he produced a 5–2 score at the rank of makushita 15 in November 2009. However his progress then stalled with two consecutive make-koshi, and he suffered a concussion after falling from the dohyō in a match against Takanoiwa in March 2010, and had to be carried off in a wheelchair. He was then overtaken by Takayasu who did become the first Heisei-born sekitori in November 2010, along Masunoyama. Commenting on this historic failure, his master Takadagawa declared that Ryūden had succumbed to pressure.Ryūden was however promoted to jūryō after scoring a perfect 7–0 record and taking the makushita championship at the September 2012 tournament. He was promoted along five others, including Kyokushūhō, Akiseyama, Homarefuji and. Ryūden became the first sekitori produced by the new Takadagawa stablemaster, who had taken over the running of the stable from former ōzeki Maenoyama, in 2009. He was also the first sekitori from Yamanashi Prefecture since Hidenohana, 24 years earlier. At the time of his promotion, his master encouraged him to wrestle in such a way as to create excitement and rally the public to a Japanese wrestler, since sumo was dominated by Mongolian wrestlers at the time.
However Ryūden suffered a fracture of his right hip joint in his jūryō debut in November and had to withdraw from the tournament. During his long injury recuperation he made two abortive attempts to return, breaking the hip twice more. This resulted in him falling all the way down to jonokuchi 17 in the rankings, journalists commenting that Ryūden "had to go through hell". For four consecutive tournaments from January until July 2014, although still injured, he fought one match at the end of the tournament, solely to prevent falling off the banzuke completely. He was finally fit to return in September 2014 and won three consecutive yūshō to quickly return to the fourth highest makushita division. He was finally promoted back to jūryō in November 2016. Only and Kotobeppu had returned to jūryō from lower ranks than Ryūden had.
''Makuuchi'' career
Ryūden was promoted to the top makuuchi division in January 2018, becoming the second top division wrestler from Takadagawa stable to achieve this feat since the new head coach took over. At the time of his promotion, he was the first Yamanashi Prefecture native to be ranked in makuuchi since Ōnohana in March 1988, and the seventh postwar wrestler from this prefecture to achieve this promotion. He was also the second wrestler in sumo history, after Kotobeppu, to earn a promotion to makuuchi after being relegated to the jonokuchi division.He scored ten wins in his top division debut and shared the Fighting Spirit prize with fellow newcomer Abi. Since then, he has stayed in makuuchi and has mainly shown solid performances. In September 2018, Ryūden was the fastest maegashira-ranked wrestler to reach the positive kachi-koshi balance with a win over Shōhōzan. For this feat and his 10 wins in total, he was nominated for the Fighting Spirit Award, but was shelved because he did not reach the majority of the attending committee members votes. In May 2019, he notably defeated ōzeki Gōeidō on Day 11 and earned a tenth victory by defeating komusubi Aoiyama on the last day of the tournament. For this performance, he received his first special prize for Technique. The following tournament, he was promoted to komusubi, a first for a wrestler from Yamanashi Prefecture since Fujizakura, 47 years earlier. His promotion to the san'yaku ranks makes Ryūden the first wrestler in sumo history to earn a promotion to this status after being relegated to jonokuchi. With 79 tournaments elapsed since entering professional sumo, Ryūden is also the 10th slowest wrestler to reach the san'yaku ranks. Entering the July 2019 tournament at his highest rank, Ryūden recorded an initial defeat to yokozuna Kakuryū, but bounced back to claim back-to-back victories over ōzeki Takayasu and Tochinoshin. However, he finished the tournament with a poor 4–11 record and was demoted after only one tournament in san'yaku, remaining in the mid-maegashira ranks until May 2021, where he fell to maegashira 14.