Japanese-Filipino sumo wrestlers.

I don’t know much about sumo wrestling but I’ve seen many European sumos out there but never that that I thought I’d see a Filipino (Well half Filipino). I was just surfing the web to find a new post under this category since I haven’t been posting a topic like this in awhile. Well, here is Takayasu Akira. Having a Japanese father and a Filipino mother, he is the first sumo wrestler born in the Hesiei  era. Only in the age of 21 he is already in the top makuuchi division in 2011.

More about Takayasu Akira from wikipedia:

Early Life:Born to a Japanese father and a Filipino mother, Takayasu was raised in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki and was a center fielder on his junior high school baseball team. On his father’s recommendation he joined Naruto stable upon graduating from junior high school.

Career:On his entry to Naruto stable, Takayasu was already 180 centimeters tall and weighed 120 kilograms, and consequently had much expectation pinned on him from the start. His first tournament was in March, 2005. He made steady progress through the lower divisions, with only a few losing record or make-koshi tournaments. He won the yusho or championship in the third makushita division in September, 2010 with a perfect 7-0 record. This propelled him into jūryō division, where along with Masunoyama became one of the first two sekitori to be born in the Heisei era. He decided against adopting a traditional shikona despite reaching the elite and will continue to use his birth name. In his first jūryō tournament in November he almost pulled off a second consecutive championship, losing to Toyohibiki in a playoff after both finished with 11-4 records.

After two more strong performances at jūryō Takayasu was promoted to the top makuuchi division in July, 2011. His debut record of 9-6 at maegashira 11 earned him a maegashira rank of no. 6 in the following tournament, then his highest to date, but he only managed a 6-9 record there. After a 9-6 score in the November 2011 tournament he was promoted to a new high of maegashira 3.

Now, I finnaly have someone to root for on the sumo wrestling industry ヽ(*≧ω≦)ﾉ

A short video on Akira:

EDIT

Another half Filipino sumo wrestler named Masunoyama Tomoharu. His wiki page is in Japanese and working I’m working into translating it but being the same age as Akira and ranking in the Maegashira 9. Unfortunately, there is no videos of him on youtube yet but here is a picture. Make that two wrestlers I’m going to root for.