Let's talk about this powerhouse of Sumo! I think he will be a Yokozuna one day - barring injury of course. Here's why I think so:

Sumo Body

He stands at 6'4 which is extremely tall for a rikishi, and "only" weighs 395. I say only because most of the guys in this weight range (high 300s to low 400s) are considerably fatter - look at Tokushoryu, Aoiyama, Tochinoshin, Chiyomaru. He's got age on a lot of these guys for sure, but he also has a much tighter body composition.

He also is dominating the sport already, and at 25 has lots and lots of room to grow his technique

Record

It's no doubt that his rise has been meteoric. He is overall 48-17 in the 7 basho (not counting current) he's participated in. He also hasn't yet had a makekoshi.

Let's look at his record compared to (one of? the?) fastest-rising Yokozuna ever, Asashoryu. I am not saying that Kinbozan will be as prolific as Asashoryu, but I think it's a pretty good indicator that he has not only a bright future in the sport, but that he can get himself a white rope one day.

Also important to reiterate is that all of this assumes he remains injury-free.

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I am using somewhat comparative ranks here, but just to give a sense as to how they compared at a similar point in their careers:

A few notes about this comparison:

• When Asashoryu was at a similar place in his career, he already had two Basho under his belt, 6-1 in Jonokuchi and 7-0 in Jonidan. Since Kinbozan debuted at Sandanme 10 this was the closest I could get in their comparisons
• Kinobozan has two Juryo basho which are both 15 day events, which don't show up with Asashoryu. You could add Asashory's Juryo debut (9-6) to the list to 'even up' the number of overall matches, an you'd get this:
  • Asashoryu: 49-15
  • Kinbozan: 48-17
• It took Asashoryu until his 11th Basho to hit Juryo, Kinbozan did it on his 6th - but they started at different ranks

So, what do you think?

In my estimation, I think Kinbozan will continue to rise through Juryo and hit Makuuchi this year without a problem. I would expect him to hit san'yaku sometime next year, and who knows from there!