Rest in peace Chadwick Haheo Rowan AKA Akebono Tarō 1969-2024
In sumo, it is almost unheard of that a rikishi bow out at the top of their game. For most, the years leading up to retirement are marked by a slow and arduous waning of strength and spirit, until no other option remains. In the case of sumo’s first foreign-born Yokozuna, however, the final year of his career marked a remarkable return-to-form.
Akebono had bulldozed his way to sumo’s top rank some seven years prior, equipped with an anomalous brand of oshizumo made possible by his unprecedented stature. Standing 6’8” tall and weighing around 500lbs, the young Akebono would regularly claim victory with no more than a couple extensions of his long arms, backed by the power of his tremendous bulk.
Unfortunately, this extreme size would contribute to a variety of injuries over the years that saw the Yokozuna’s power rise and fall intermittently. During the final two years of the 1990s, Akebono was unable to claim a single top-division championship, and was forced to sit out on five separate occasions. By the start of the new millennium, however, the Yokozuna came roaring back with what one could fairly argue was the strongest sumo of his career. After adapting a more balanced grappling style during the middle part of the last decade, Akebono returned to his roots, exploding out of the tachiai with arms outstretched, once again sending his foes flying out of the ring. In the November tournament of 2000, following a surprise defeat to a quick-thinking Wakanosato on day 3, Akebono proceeded to demolish all of the sport’s top-rankers in a completely one-sided display of dominance, finishing with a 14-1 record and taking home the Emperor’s Cup for the 11th and final time. In his final five tournaments as a Yokozuna, Akebono claimed three jun-yūshō and two yūshō, scoring no less than 12 wins in any of those contests. After sitting out the first basho of the new year, he would announce his retirement.