Ishiura Masakatsu

Ishiura Masakatsu
石浦 将勝
Personal information
Born	Masakatsu Ishiura (1990-01-10) January 10, 1990 Tottori Prefecture, Japan
Height	1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	114 kg (251 lb)
Career
Stable	Miyagino
University	Nihon University
Current rank	see below
Debut	January, 2013
Highest rank	Maegashira 15 (November, 2015)
Championships	1 (Jonidon) 1 (Jonokuchi)
Special Prizes	Fighting Spirit (1)
* Up to date as of Nov 28, 2016.

Ishiura Masakatsu (石浦 将勝) (born January 10, 1990 in Tottori Prefecture, Japan), is a professional sumo wrestler. He debuted in sumo wrestling on January 2013 and made his makuuchi debut in November 2016. His highest rank has been maegashira 15, and he has one special prize for Fighting Spirit. He wrestles for Miyagino stable.

Background

Ishiura was born in Tottori, the principal city of Tottori Prefecture, which is the most sparsely-populated prefecture in Japan. He studied at Nihon University. As of 2016 he still wrestles under his real name and is yet to adopt a formal shikona or ring-name. Ishiura is of unusually small stature for a sumo wrestler: when he made his makuuchi debut he was officially 18 kg (40 lb) lighter than any other competitor in the division.

He has also been known for his contributions on social media, posting video clips on Twitter of his fellow wrestlers playing arcade games^[1] and competing in sprint races.^[2]

Career

Ishiura joined the Miyagino stable and entered professional sumo in 2013 at the reltively advanced age of 23. He made an immediate impact, winning the jonokuchi division in March and the jonidan division in May with unblemished 7-0 records and earning a third straight promotion with six wins at sandanme in July. He spent the next nine tournaments in the third makushita division before earning another promotion with a 6-1 record in January 2015. In the second division (jūryō) he proved himself a consistent performer, recording seven winning records (kachi-koshi) in ten tournaments and clinching yet another promotion with nine wins in September 2016.

Ishiura made his makuuchi debut in November, 2016 debuting as the East Maegashira 15. After losing on the first day of the tournament to Chiyotairyu Ishiura won the next ten days straight putting him on the leader board for a while. However, on day 12 Ishiura suffered his second loss to Ikioi and then continued to lose for the rest of the tournament finishing off with a 10-5 record which was enough to win him his first special prize - the Fighting Spirit Prize. In his debut tournament he was able to get ten straight victories, double digit wins, and his first special prize. His ten wins equaled the performance of Shōdai in January 2016 and was otherwise the best by a top-division debutante since Ichinojo's thirteen wins in September 2014.

Fighting style

Ishiura favours a right hand inside, left hand outside grip on his opponent's mawashi or belt. His favourite kimarite or winning technique is shitatenage, the underarm throw.

Career record

See also

• Glossary of sumo terms
• List of active sumo wrestlers

References

External links

• Ishiura Masakatsu's official biography (English) at the Grand Sumo Homepage