Arawashi Tsuyoshi

From his November 2002 debut, he rose slowly but steadily through the ranks over three years, recording mostly winning tournaments. However, in the January 2006 tournament he dislocated his left shoulder and had to drop out. He also missed the following tournament. After this his shoulder became prone to dislocating and upon his seventh dislocation he elected to finally have corrective surgery upon completing the May 2007 tournament. Rehabilitation from the surgery forced him to sit out three tournaments. He dropped from makushita 22 down to jonidan 22 in this period. During this time he studied the techniques of former yokozuna Chiyonofuji who long suffered from an easily dislocated shoulder. Upon his return in January 2008, his sumo was back in form and he recorded three 6–1 consecutive tournaments. However, in September of that year, Araiso stable closed upon the retirement of its owner, the former Futagodake. While the other wrestlers in the stable chose to retire, he chose to remain active and transferred to Hanakago stable.[2]

He continued his steady rise through the ranks, recording only one or two losing tournaments a year. In the May 2011 technical tournament which was not televised due to the ramifications of widespread match-fixing he managed only a 3–4 record at makushita 3. This normally would have led to a drop in rank. However, he was one of a number of wrestlers who benefited from the dismissal of several high-ranking wrestlers for match-fixing and he was actually promoted to the salaried jūryō division for the first time in his career in the July 2011 tournament.[3] He only managed a 5–10 record at jūryō 13 and was demoted back to makushita 3. He repeated this same feat twice more, taking a number of tournaments to rise to jūryō and being relegated after a single losing tournament back to the unsalaried makushita division.

During this period, in 2012, Hanakago stable had to close due to financial difficulties. He then transferred to his third stable, Minezaki. Starting in the September 2013 tournament he begin to be more consistent, and posted two strong 6–1 consecutive tournaments to achieve promotion to jūryō for the fourth time in the January 2014 tournament. He debuted at a then career high rank of jūryō 10 and managed an 8–7 record. A 10–5 record in the following March tournament garnered him his first promotion to the makuuchi top division for the May 2014 tournament.

Arawashi was the 21st Mongolian to make it to the top division following Terunofuji. At the beginning of his career, Arawashi had entered sumo at the same time as Kotoōshū but was soon left behind as Kotoōshū made one of the fastest-ever rises to makuuchi and ultimately ōzeki. Arawashi had stated that one of his goals was to make it to makuuchi and once again face Kotoōshū in the ring. However, he would never realize this goal, as Kotoōshū retired, his name being taken off the banzuke the same tournament that Arawashi's was added to makuuchi. Arawashi alternated between winning and losing tournaments before a calamitous 2–13 record in May 2015 saw him demoted back to the jūryō division. He returned to the top division in July 2016 and came through with a winning record. In November 2016 he produced a career-best performance as a final day win over Shōdai saw him end with an 11–4 record and a promotion to maegashira 2 for the January tournament. In this tournament he started with five straight losses but then defeated yokozuna Kakuryū on Day 6 to earn his first kinboshi.[4] It took him 85 tournaments from his professional debut to get a kinboshi, the seventh-slowest of all time.[5] He then defeated Hakuhō on Day 8,[6] meaning his only two wins of the tournament at that point had come against yokozuna. He finished with a 6–9 record. In the March 2017 tournament he had his third career win over a yokozuna, defeating Harumafuji.[7] However, he had to withdraw from the tournament on Day 13 after injuring his ankle.[8] He returned to the maegashira 2 ranking in March 2018, but scored only 2–13. After a run of poor results he was demoted to the jūryō division after the July 2018 tournament. He returned to the top division in November 2018 but after winning only one match he withdrew on Day 13 with a left knee injury, sending him back to jūryō.