Konishiki Yasokichi is one of the most popular and richest Rikishi who was born on December 31, 1963 in Oahu, Oahu, United States. Konishiki Yasokichi (小錦八十吉 , Konishiki Yasokichi, born Saleva’a Fuauli Atisano’e; December 31, 1963) is a Hawaiian-born Japanese-Samoan former sumo wrestler. He was the first non-Japanese-born wrestler to reach ōzeki, the second-highest rank in the sport. During his career he won the top division championship on three occasions and came close to becoming the first foreign-born grand champion, or yokozuna, prompting a debate as to whether a foreigner could have the necessary cultural understanding to be acceptable in sumo’s ultimate rank. At a peak weight of 287 kg (633 lb) he was also at the time the heaviest wrestler ever in sumo, earning him the nicknames “Meat Bomb” and “Dump Truck”.
By late 1991 Konishiki was a strong yokozuna candidate. He had overcome his injuries and showed much more consistency. Yokozuna Chiyonofuji and Ōnokuni had both recently retired, and Asahifuji and Hokutoumi were struggling with illness and injury. Konishiki took advantage by winning two championships (his 2nd and 3rd overall) in November 1991 and March 1992, with a record in the last three tournaments of 38 wins and 7 losses. However, he was denied promotion to yokozuna, with the chairman of the Yokozuna Deliberation Committee, Hideo Ueda, announcing, “We wanted to make doubly sure that Konishiki is worthy to be a grand champion. Therefore, we decided to wait for another tournament.” Another member of the committee, Noboru Kojima, said in an interview that Konishiki did not possess hinkaku, a word derived from hin meaning “grace, elegance and refinement.” His remarks were given the headline, “We Don’t Need a Foreign Yokozuna” by a newspaper. The New York Times subsequently quoted Konishiki as saying, “If I were Japanese, I would be yokozuna already.” The Japan Sumo Association demanded an apology. Konishiki held a press conference in which he tearfully denied making the remarks, insisting that one of his personal attendants had impersonated him, but the damage had been done. The media furor hampered his preparations for the forthcoming tournament which resulted in a mediocre 9–6 record. Konishiki never came close to promotion again.
In 2000 Shinichi Watanabe, director of Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemy, created an anime series called Dotto! Koni-chan, in which Koni, the protagonist, is a fat child who strongly resembles KONISHIKI.
In January 2004 he married his girlfriend of two years, former medical worker Chie Iijima. He had previously married former model Sumika Shioda in 1992, but they divorced amicably in December 2000.
Early in his career, under the instruction of his first stablemaster, Konishiki was primarily oshi-sumo specialist, preferring pushing and thrusting techniques such as oshi-dashi and tsuki-dashi that would win the bout as quickly as possible. Following his knee problems in 1988 and 1989, his balance suffered and as his weight continued to increase he began to change his style, preferring to bide his time by grabbing the opponent’s mawashi and rely on his huge weight advantage to wear them out. By 1992 he was winning virtually all his matches by yori-kiri (force out), and his lack of ability to change tack once he had been sidestepped was one of the concerns raised by the Yokozuna Deliberation Committee when he was up for promotion. His peak weight of 285 kilograms (628 lb) recorded in March 1996 was the heaviest ever for a sumo wrestler until surpassed by Ōrora in 2017.
