Makuuchi

The 11th Yokozuna, Shiranui Kōemon and the 13th Yokozuna, Kimenzan Tanigorō (1866)

The birth of the rank of yokozuna is unclear, and there are two competing legends. According to one, a 9th-century wrestler named Hajikami tied a shimenawa around his waist as a handicap and dared any to touch it, creating sumo as it is now known in the process. According to the other, legendary wrestler Akashi Shiganosuke tied the shimenawa around his waist in 1630 as a sign of respect when visiting the Emperor, and was posthumously awarded the title for the first time. There is little supporting evidence for either theory—in fact, it is not even certain that Akashi actually existed—but it is known that by November 1789, yokozuna starting from the fourth yokozuna Tanikaze Kajinosuke and the fifth yokozuna Onogawa Kisaburō were depicted in ukiyo-e prints as wearing the shimenawa. These two wrestlers were both awarded yokozuna licences by the prominent Yoshida family.

Before the Meiji Era, the title yokozuna was conferred on ōzeki who performed sumo in front of the shōgun. This privilege was more often determined by a wrestler's patron having sufficient influence rather than purely on the ability and dignity of the wrestler. Thus there are a number of early wrestlers who were, by modern standards, yokozuna in name only. In these early days yokozuna was also not regarded as a separate rank in the listings, but as an ōzeki with special dispensation to perform his own ring entering ceremony.

At first, the Yoshida family and a rival family, Gojo, fought for the right to award a wrestler a yokozuna licence. The Yoshida family won this dispute, because the 15th yokozuna Umegatani Tōtarō I, one of the strongest wrestlers, expressed his wish that he be awarded a licence by the Yoshida family in February 1884, and Gojo licences are no longer recognized officially.

In May 1890, the name yokozuna was written on the banzuke for the first time due to the 16th yokozuna Nishinoumi Kajirō I's insistence that his yokozuna status be recorded. In February 1909, during the reigns of the 19th yokozuna, Hitachiyama Taniemon, and the 20th, Umegatani Tōtarō II, it was officially recognized as the highest rank. Since the establishment of the Yokozuna Deliberation Council (横綱審議委員会, Yokozuna-shingi-iinkai) on 21 April 1950, wrestlers have been promoted to yokozuna by the Japan Sumo Association. The first yokozuna promoted by the Sumo Association was the 41st yokozuna Chiyonoyama Masanobu.

In modern sumo, the qualifications that an ōzeki must satisfy to be promoted are that he has enough power, skill and dignity/grace (品格 hinkaku) to qualify. There are no absolute criteria, nor is there a set quota: there have been periods with no wrestlers at yokozuna rank, and there have been periods with as many as four simultaneously.

The power and skill aspects are usually considered with reference to recent tournament performance. The de facto standard is to win two consecutive championships as ōzeki or an equivalent performance. In the case where the "equivalent performance" criterion is used the wrestler's record over the previous three tournaments is taken into account with an expectation of at least one tournament victory and two runner-up performances, with none of the three records falling below twelve wins. Thus a consistent high level of performance is required. Winning two tournaments with a poor performance between them is not usually sufficient. The rules are not set in stone and hence in reaching their conclusion the Yokozuna Deliberation Council and Sumo Association can interpret the criteria more leniently or strictly and also take into account other factors, such as total number of tournament victories, the quality of the wins and whether the losses show any serious vulnerabilities.

The issue of hinkaku (dignity and grace) is more contentious, as it is essentially a subjective issue. For example, Hawaiian-born ōzeki Konishiki, in particular, was felt by many to be unfairly kept from yokozuna status due to his non-Japanese origin, and many Sumo Association members even openly said that foreigners (gaijin) could never achieve the hinkaku needed to be a yokozuna. In the case of Konishiki, other issues such as his weight were also cited.[1] Other wrestlers have also been held back. For example, Chiyonoyama in the 1950s was not immediately promoted due to his relative youth despite winning consecutive tournaments, although he later achieved the top rank.[2] On the other hand, Futahaguro was given the title of yokozuna in 1986, despite immaturity being cited in opposition to his promotion.[3] After being promoted, he was involved in several misbehaviors that embarrassed the Sumo Association such as hitting one of his tsukebito (manservant or personal assistant) over a trivial matter in a scandal that had six of his seven tsukebito decide to leave him.[4] The promotion again proved to be a fiasco when it was later revealed that he had a heated argument with his stable boss, Tatsunami, and stormed out of the heya, allegedly striking Tatsunami's wife on the way. Futahaguro eventually retired after only one and a half years at the top rank and became the only yokozuna in sumo history ever to retire without having won at least one top division championship.

The debate concerning foreigners having the dignity to be a yokozuna was finally laid to rest on 27 January 1993, when Hawaiian-born ōzeki Akebono was formally promoted to yokozuna after only eight months as an ōzeki. Since then, the issue of whether foreigners have the necessary dignity has become a moot point as five of the eight wrestlers to achieve sumo's ultimate rank following Akebono in 1993 were not born in Japan: Musashimaru (United States), Asashōryū (Mongolia), Hakuhō (Mongolia), Harumafuji (Mongolia), and Kakuryū (Mongolia).

Elevation to yokozuna rank is a multi-stage process. After a tournament, the Yokozuna Deliberation Council, a body of lay people (that is, not former sumo wrestlers) who are appointed by the Japan Sumo Association to provide an independent quality control on yokozuna promotion, meet and discuss the performance of the top-ranked wrestlers. Usually at the instigation of the Japan Sumo Association they can make a recommendation that a particular ōzeki-ranked wrestler has the necessary attributes to be promoted. Their recommendation is then passed to the Judging division and then the Board of Directors of the Sumo Association who make the final decision.

If a wrestler is deemed to have met the criteria then he will be visited in his training stable by a member of the Sumo Association Board of Directors who will formally give him the news. In the following days a tsuna or ceremonial rope will then be made in his stable and he will practice the ring entrance ceremony with advice from a previous or current yokozuna. Finally, he will have his inaugural ceremonial ring entry ceremony held at Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, which is usually completed within a couple of weeks of the tournament end.

As opposed to all other sumo ranks, a yokozuna cannot be demoted. However, during tournaments, expectations are very high for yokozuna. A yokozuna is expected to win or at least be a serious contender for championships on a regular basis. A yokozuna is expected to retire if he can no longer compete at the peak of the sport, or in some cases (such as Futahaguro or Harumafuji) is deemed to have not upheld the dignity of the rank. Expectations are so high that, even in the course of one tournament, a yokozuna who early on appears to be headed for a losing tournament will feel the pressure to retire; there are many cases of yokozuna dropping out mid-tournament with a real or imagined injury to avoid a make-koshi (a losing record) and the expectation to retire. These expectations are a large part of the reason that the promotion criteria for yokozuna are so strict in the first place.

In extremely rare instances the Yokozuna Deliberation Council can, with over two-thirds of the members in favor, issue notices to yokozuna whose performance is contrary to what is expected of the rank.[5] Notices have been issued to four yokozuna since the council's inception in 1950. These notices are, in increasing level of severity:

• Encouragement (激励, gekirei) - issued once, to Kisenosato in November 2018.[5] He lost his first five matches in the November 2018 tournament before withdrawing. Prior to that, he had withdrawn (either partially or fully) without a winning record in eight out of ten tournaments as yokozuna. The withdrawals were due in part to injuries suffered at the end of his winning tournament run in March 2017. He eventually retired from the sport after three consecutive defeats in the January 2019 basho.
• Warning (注意, chūi) - issued in November 2020 to both Hakuhō and Kakuryū.[6] They had both sat out of the September 2020 and November 2020 tournaments due to injury. According to the council, they had "sufficiently" performed in just three and one of the tournaments between November 2019 and November 2020, respectively.
• Recommendation to Retire (引退勧告, intai kankoku) - issued once, to Asashōryū in January 2010.[5] The recommendation was issued following allegations that Asashōryū punched and injured an acquaintance in a drunken brawl at a nightclub during the January 2010 tournament. It has been suggested in the media that Asashōryū chose to retire before the Sumo Association could follow through on the council's recommendation.[7]

68th yokozuna Asashoryū's Unryū-style Yokozuna Dohyō-iri

69th yokozuna Hakuhō's Shiranui-style Yokozuna Dohyō-iri

The formal birth of the rank from Tanikaze's time appears to have in part come from a desire to let the very best have a separate ring entry ceremony (dohyō-iri) from the remaining top division wrestlers. The dohyō-iri is a ceremonial presentation of all the top division wrestlers which is held before the competitive bouts of the day. The normal ceremony for top division wrestlers is to be introduced and form a circle around the wrestling ring (dohyō) wearing specially decorated heavy silk "aprons", called keshō-mawashi. A brief symbolic "dance" is carried out before filing off to change into their fighting mawashi and prepare for their bouts.

A yokozuna, however, is introduced after the lower ranked wrestlers and is flanked by two other top division wrestler "assistants". The "dewsweeper" or tsuyuharai precedes the yokozuna, while the "sword bearer" or tachimochi follows him into the arena. The sword is a Japanese katana and symbolises the samurai status of the yokozuna. The tachimochi will always be the more highly ranked of the assisting wrestlers. As indicated above, during the ceremony the yokozuna will wear his tsuna around his waist. The ceremonial aprons of all three form a matching set.

Once in the ring the yokozuna takes centre stage and performs a much more complex ritual dance. The dance can take one of two forms, one of which the yokozuna usually chooses when he is first promoted. In addition to the slightly different routine the choice of the yokozuna's ritual can also be determined by the knot used to tie the rope around his waist: the "Unryū" style has only one loop at the back, while the "Shiranui" style has two. The styles are named after 10th yokozuna Unryū Kyūkichi and 11th yokozuna Shiranui Kōemon of the Edo period, although there is no historical proof that they actually carried out the dances that have been attributed to them. Indeed there are some scholars who believe that in fact the two concerned have had their ring entering rituals mixed up by earlier historians.

When a former yokozuna reaches the age of 60, he usually performs a special ring-entering ceremony known as kanreki dohyō-iri, wearing a red tsuna, in celebration of his longevity. This ceremony first started with the former yokozuna Tachiyama in 1937.

As of January 2018, there have been a total of 72 yokozuna, although formal record keeping only started with Tanikaze and Onogawa in 1789.

• Hakuhō, the 69th yokozuna, from Mongolia, promoted May 2007.
• Kakuryū, the 71st yokozuna, from Mongolia, promoted March 2014.

The promotion of a wrestler to ōzeki is a multi-tournament process. A wrestler at the rank of sekiwake will be considered for promotion if he has achieved a total of at least 33 wins over the three most recent tournaments, including ten or more wins in the tournament just completed. Promotion is discretionary and there are no hard-and-fast rules, though a three-tournament record of 33 wins is considered a near-guarantee. Other factors toward promotion will include tangibles such as winning a tournament or defeating yokozuna, as well as the wrestler's overall consistency, prowess, and quality of sumo—for example, a record of illegal maneuvers or reliance on certain dodging techniques would count against the dignity expected of an ōzeki.

Promotions are recommended by the Judging Division to the Board of Directors of the Japan Sumo Association. If it is a first promotion to the rank a member of the Board of Directors will formally visit the wrestler's stable to inform the new ōzeki of his promotion. The ōzeki will usually make a speech on this occasion, promising to do his best to uphold the dignity of the rank.

During the Edo period, wrestlers often made their debuts as ōzeki based on size alone, though their real competitiveness had not been tested. The system was called "guest ōzeki" (看板大関 (kanban ōzeki)). Most of these vanished from the banzuke soon after, but a few wrestlers, notably Tanikaze Kajinosuke, remained as real wrestlers.

Like the other san'yaku ranks, but unlike a yokozuna, an ōzeki may be relegated. For an ōzeki, relegation is a two-step procedure. First, the ōzeki must have a losing record in a tournament (7-8 or worse), known as a make-koshi. At this point, the ōzeki is called kadoban. If he makes a winning record (8-7 or better) in the next tournament (which is called kachi-koshi), he is restored to regular ōzeki status. If, on the other hand, he suffers another losing record in the next tournament while kadoban, he is relegated to sekiwake in the following tournament. (No matter how badly he does, he will not fall lower than sekiwake.)

If he wins ten or more bouts in this tournament, he is restored to ōzeki for the following tournament. However, if he fails to win ten or more bouts, he is treated just like any other wrestler in any further attempts at being promoted back to ōzeki. This system has been in place since the Nagoya Tournament of 1969. Since that time, six wrestlers have managed an immediate return to ōzeki: Mienoumi, Takanonami, Musōyama, Tochiazuma (who managed it on two separate occasions), Tochinoshin and Takakeishō.

In addition to a salary increase there are a number of perks associated with reaching ōzeki rank:

• He is guaranteed a higher rank in the Sumo Association when he first retires.
• He will be given a three-year temporary membership of the Sumo Association on his retirement if he does not yet own a share.
• He will receive a special merit payment on his retirement (the amount decided by his strength and longevity as an ōzeki).
• Have a parking space at the Sumo Association headquarters.
• He can vote in the election of the Sumo Association directors.
• Normally he will receive additional support from his stable in terms of junior wrestlers to act as his manservants.
• He can wear purple fringed ceremonial aprons (keshō-mawashi)
• He may be called on to represent the wrestlers on formal occasions such as when VIPs visit a sumo tournament, or on formal visits to Shinto shrines.

• Takakeishō, since November 2019
• Asanoyama, since March 2020
• Shōdai, since November 2020

• Takanoshō, since November 2020 (previous rank: maegashira 1)
• Terunofuji, since January 2021 (previous rank: komusubi)

Names in bold indicate a still active wrestler.

• Takayasu, since November 2020 (previous rank: maegashira 6)
• Mitakeumi, since January 2021 (previous rank: sekiwake)

Names in bold indicate a still active wrestler.

Names in bold indicate a still active wrestler.