BULAGRIAN-born wrestler Kotooshu, with looks compared to David Beckham, has brought sex appeal to sumo wrestling.<\/p>\n
And now the 22 year-old is on course to become the first European to win a sumo tournament in Japan.<\/p>\n
Not only is he a novelty because of his origin, but Kotooshu is tall and unusually lean, using his physique as an asset against famously plump sumo wrestlers.<\/p>\n
Kotooshu, real name Mahlyanov Kaloyan Stefanov, is the only undfefeated grappler in the 15-bout autumn grand sumo tournament, one of six annual championships, which ends on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Foreigners have in recent years rapidly integrated into the 2000-year-old Japanese sport, with 59 overseas-born wrestlers now registered with the Japan Sumo Association.<\/p>\n
But 35 of them come from Mongolia and of the 10 Europeans, Kotooshu is the only one from Bulgaria.<\/p>\n
The best-selling Yomiuri Shimbun has dubbed him Bulgaria’s best-known export after yoghurt.<\/p>\n
With his model-like grin and dash of chest hair, Kotooshu has been described by the Japanese media as the David Beckham of sumo, a reference to the glam boy of British football.<\/p>\n
While Kotooshu is yet to enjoy a fan following anywhere near Beckham’s, his every bout is now being watched with close attention by the Japanese media.<\/p>\n
Standing a 204cm and weighing 143kg, Kotooshu uses his long arms and quick footsteps for his favourite technique of “Uwatenage, “or overarm throw, to take down opponents.<\/p>\n
He attributes his success to dedicated work.<\/p>\n
“I study and analyse my opponents, “he said. “I practice.”<\/p>\n
Despite his relatively trim size for sumo, Kotooshu was first drawn to the Japanese sport because of his weight.<\/p>\n
As a teenager, he trained for Western-style wrestling and had hoped to compete in the Olympics.<\/p>\n
But he switched his trunks for the sumo loincloth in part because he struggled to lose weight for competitions and sumo does not have weight classes.<\/p>\n
After winning European amateur sumo tournaments, he was recruited in 2002 to join the Sadogatake stable and has since steadily climbed the ranks.<\/p>\n
Now boasting the career record of 137 wins and 50 losses, Kotooshu was given the outstanding performance award in the July tournament for toppling Mongolian grand champion Asashoryu. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BULAGRIAN-born wrestler Kotooshu, with looks compared to David Beckham, has brought sex appeal to sumo wrestling. And now the 22 year-old is on course to become the first European to win a sumo tournament in Japan. Not only is he a novelty because of his origin, but Kotooshu is tall and unusually lean, using his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-qc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}