Dewanoumi Sakaigawa rijicho Sadanoyama passed away

[Akinomaki 39,786]

on Apr. 27th, 3:15h a.m. JST at age 79 in hospital, because of pneumonia http://sumodb.sumogames.de/Rikishi.aspx?r=3994

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Edited May 1, 2017 by Akinomaki

[Akinomaki 39,786]

JapanTimes (from Kyodo): http://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2017/05/01/sumo/former-yokozuna-sadanoyama-dies-79

Edited May 1, 2017 by Akinomaki

[Swami 245]

Sad news, he must have the oldest living yokozuna, presumably that now falls to Tochinoumi?

 

Swami

[ryafuji 807]

2 hours ago, Swami said:

Sad news, he must have the oldest living yokozuna, presumably that now falls to Tochinoumi?

 

Swami

Correct. Tochinoumi was born one month later than Sadanoyama.

[Akinomaki 39,786]

More overview pics and links - another gallery is at http://www.jiji.com/jc/d4?p=sdy218&d=d4_uu

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[Rocks 1,807]

May he RIP. No yusho outside of Makuuchi division. I wonder if that is unusual for a yokozuna?

Also he was never a komusubi and won a yusho at every other makuuchi rank. Interesting career.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Rocks

[Asashosakari 18,786]

Some bio details, gleaned from various papers' obits and the usual other sources...

Sadanoyama competed in the tough Hakuhō 柏鵬 era with Taiho and Kashiwado at the top, and managed to leave his own mark in sumo history, winning three yusho as yokozuna and six in total. (In fact, one more than Kashiwado did.) At the time of his promotion it was said that he had managed to overcome the curse of the hiramaku (maegashira) yusho. Even now, only Takanohana has joined him in achieving promotion to the top rank as a former hiramaku yusho winner.

Sadanoyama's retirement in Haru 1968 came as a big shock, as he called it quits despite winning back-to-back yusho right before and being only 30 years of age. He later said that, despite the apparent suddenness of his intai, he had in fact been considering it extensively due to feeling that his powers had been on the wane; the 2-3 start in his final basho served to make up his mind. Following his retirement from active competition he immediately took over the running of Dewanoumi-beya from the former Dewanohana, whose eldest daughter Sadanoyama had married in 1963, leaving Dewanohana to concentrate on his duties as a Kyokai director. (Only a few months later he would be elevated to rijicho after the death of incumbent ex-Futabayama at only 56 years of age.)

While Dewanoumi-beya was unable to return to its past glories during Sadanoyama's 28 years in charge, he did bring up more than a dozen top division rikishi, most of whom were steady fixtures in makuuchi and variously reached the sanyaku ranks. The ascent of late-blooming yokozuna Mienoumi in 1979 turned out to be his crowning achievement as a coach. However, his efforts as a Kyokai executive arguably eclipsed his work aside the dohyo. First elected to the board of directors in 1974, he proceeded to be at the helm of nearly all the more important departments over the next two decades, serving as director of judging, the jungyo tours and the operations department.

In 1992 he became the 7th rijicho of the modern Kyokai, succeeding former yokozuna Wakanohana who was set to retire. With sumo about to boom thanks to the Taka-Waka era, he set about various reforms, some questionable (the "restraint" policy/quasi-ban on recruiting foreign rikishi), some long overdue (a standardization in the handling of the tsukedashi rules for amateur rikishi), and some with strong business impact (letting external promoters handle jungyo events rather than managing them in-house). His most ambitious project not only turned out to be prescient, but also portended the end of his time at the top - amid the tax evasion mess that former ozeki Takanohana found himself in with his kabu acquisition and the "kabu bubble" that saw share prices rise to hundreds of millions of yen, Sadanoyama promoted a plan that would have seen the shares managed in central fashion by the Kyokai.

Fiercely opposed by many members of the Association who saw their high-priced assets under threat, nothing came of it except Sadanoyama's decision to not seek re-election as rijicho again in 1998 after multiple candidates running in opposition to his reform were elected onto the board. He stepped back to a regular director role and became head of the sumo school for the next two years, before making an unusual return to his long-ago post as chief of judging for another two-year term in 2000 to end his tenure as a Kyokai executive a year before his mandatory retirement date. His kabu reform ideas ended up becoming a topic again nearly 15 years after the fact when the Kyokai was forced to reorganize itself due to politically mandated changes to the structure of Japanese non-profit organisations.

Closer to home, his time in charge of Dewanoumi-beya had already come to its end in 1996 when he passed the stable to his deshi ex-Washuyama several years early in order to concentrate on his administrative duties, much like his father-in-law had done three decades prior. His last seven years as rijicho / riji and oyakata were spent as Sakaigawa-oyakata, turning a formerly undistinguished kabu name into a very familiar one. The name value he created for that share was eventually passed on to another deshi of his, the former Ryogoku who adopted the name for his then-Nakadachi-beya.

Sadanoyama's most lasting legacy is arguably not one of the reforms he instituted or tried to institute as rijicho, but something much less apparent. Dewanoumi-beya, effectively half of sumo in rikishi and sekitori terms for much of the first half of the 20th century, had long had a policy of not (or rather, very rarely) permitting its oyakata to branch out with independent stables. That approach persisted even when the stable's fortunes began to turn south after WWII, threatening to limit the group's power in the long run. It was during the latter days of Sadanoyama's run atop Dewanoumi-beya and -ichimon that this policy came to be gradually relaxed, leading to today's sumo landscape in which Dewanoumi remains the strongest ichimon out there in terms of oyakata headcount and arguably in political power, but now also leads in the number of heya.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Asashosakari

[PawnSums 59]

I really hate waking up to news like this. (No I did not just wake up, I just didn't use the computer)

He was my dad's favorite, if only he could have lived at least a few more years to become the longest living yokozuna.

 ( I know this symbol has probably lost meaning due to the fact that I use it so much, but I just can not take this news.)

R.I.P. Sadanoyama, may he win many more bouts against the sumo ghosts.

 

[ryafuji 807]

2 hours ago, Rocks said:

May he RIP. No yusho outside of Makuuchi division. I wonder if that is unusual for a yokozuna?

Don't know but I can think of Akebono off the top of my head as another example.

 

[Otokonoyama 2,735]

 

[Orion 431]

On 2017年5月2日 at 03:41, PawnSums said:

I really hate waking up to news like this. (No I did not just wake up, I just didn't use the computer)

He was my dad's favorite, if only he could have lived at least a few more years to become the longest living yokozuna.

 ( I know this symbol has probably lost meaning due to the fact that I use it so much, but I just can not take this news.)

R.I.P. Sadanoyama, may he win many more bouts against the sumo ghosts.

 

Memories, memories...  On my first visit to Japan, staying at a farm up in the mountains near Nikko, I saw the Osaka basho 1968 on TV. Our host couldn't manage much English but my interest had already been piqued by a very good article in the Singapore Straits Times shortly before our departure, and I watched avidly. That's how I saw Takamiyama's first kinboshi  (the first foreigner to beat a yokozuna) and, a couple of days later, the yokozuna lost again and promptly announced his retirement. Five years later I returned to Japan and have been living here ever since, and after another five years I moved into the sumo neighborhood and was accepted as the first-ever foreign paying supporter of Dewanoumi-beya. Even then, I didn't immediately cotton on to the fact that the master was the yokozuna whose retirement I had seen on TV so many years earlier. And that, folks, is how I got started in sumo.

Orion

[Tiger Tanaka 222]

Sad news to read this morning. Sadanoyama really symbolizes my first exposure to Sumo. Without much coverage of the sport in the U.S. The first time I really got to see Sumo was in the Bond film You Only Live Twice. Only years later as I now am getting into Sumo, did I discover that Sadanoyama was the rikishi who cameo'd in the film and gave Bond is seat tickets. After finding this out, I read up on Sadanoyama and watched old clips of him during his career on YouTube. Thank you @Asashosakari for compiling that wonderful bio write-up. When I first read about how he took over leading the Dewanoumi stable, it became the stable I now support and Mitakeumi is my favorite active rikishi.

So suffice to say, Sadanoyama has had a big impact on my influences early in my following of the sport. I wish I got to know more about him before he passed.