K-1 vet Kido Yasuhiro will not be adding his recent ganryujima match to his impressive highlight reel.
This past weekend star kickboxer Kido Yosuhiro was booked to fight former sumo wrestler Terutsuyoshi at K-1’s Japan Martial Arts Expo event. Kido, a devastating KO artist and former K-1 tournament winner, may have thought his old promotion was giving him a lay-up against a much smaller man with zero pro striking experience. However, unfortunately for Kido, things didn’t go as planned.
The fight was a ‘ganryujima’ bout, named for an island that featured a legendary samurai duel. Ganryujima bouts can be won by KO, submission or ring out (pushing an opponent off the platform three times). In this bout Kido failed to add a brutal KO highlight to his personal collection. Instead he suffered an embarrassing ring out defeat.
kido just got hoed by a 5 foot tall former sumo wrestler pic.twitter.com/RtOrIXFqTN
— kai (@shatteredjaw) October 19, 2024
Kido, who made the odd decision to fight along the edges of the platform against a man whose only offense is a push out, protested each of the three ring outs that lead to his defeat.
The last time Kido, aka ‘The Golden Hitman’, was in action things went more to plan. In May he fought fake Shaolin monk Li Long. Kido obliterated Li (whose gimmick was a supposedly iron chin) with a horrific head kick.
This was Terutsuyoshi’s first foray into combat sports since announcing his retirement from Grand Sumo earlier this year.
In sumo Terutsuyoshi (real name Fukouka Shoki) amassed a pro record of 425-422. The highest rank he ever held was maegashira 3 in the makuuchi (top division). The M3 position is just three ranks below sumo’s san’yaku ranks. Those upper ranks include the sport’s most elite competitors, including the yokozuna.
Achieving a rank of M3 is an incredible feat in the sport. Especially for someone as undersized as Terutsuyoshi. At 5’5” and 245 lbs, Terutsuyoshi is one of the smallest wrestlers to compete at that high of a level.
Terutsuyoshi peaked in 2020, when he achieved his M3 rank. He was unable to hang with the elite competition he faced at that ranking, though. What followed were multiple tournaments with losing records. In sumo this leads to being demoted in the rankings and eventually relegation from the division. In 2022 Terutsuyoshi took a rare 0-15 record in a tournament.
After that winless tournament Terutsuyoshi competed in six more tournaments before calling it quits during the haru basho (spring tournament) in March.
Despite his losing records Terutsuyoshi was one of the most popular rikishi around. This is partly due to his exciting fighting style, which relied on evasion and grappling to get past much bigger opponents. Terutsuyoshi was also famed for unorthodox moves in the dohyo (sumo ring), including ashitori which resembles a single-leg takedown.
Terutsuyoshi was also popular for his unusual pre-fight ritual.
Before sumo wrestlers compete they purify the fighting area with salt. Usually wrestlers will take a small amount in their hand or between their fingers and sprinkle it across the ring. Terutsuyoshi, on the other hand, would try and take the entire basket of salt into his palm and launch it high across the ring — much to the crowd’s delight.
The 29-year-old has said his goal is to compete in MMA. He’s not the first sumo wrestler to make the transition. The legendary Hawaiian rikishi Akebono (sumo’s first ever non Japanese yokozuna) went 0-4 in MMA, competing in K-1 against Royce Gracie and Don Frye.
UFC 1 also featured sumo wrestler Teila Tuli (who briefly competed in japan under the name Takamishu in the late 1980s). Tuli lost to Gerard Gordeau via head kick in the first ever televised UFC fight.
It’s unlikely that Terutsuyoshi will achieve much success in MMA. However, if the past has taught us anything, there will be plenty of promoters willing to book him.