Sadogatake stable (佐渡ヶ嶽部屋, Sadogatake-beya) is a stable of sumo wrestlers, one of the Nishonoseki group of stables. In its modern form, it dates from September 1955, when it was set up by former komusubiKotonishiki Noboru. Former yokozunaKotozakura took over the running of the stable in 1974 following Kotonishiki's death. The stable is located in Matsudo, Chiba prefecture. Over the next thirty years the stable produced a string of top division wrestlers. Kotozakura stood down in November 2005, handing the stable over to his son-in-law, former sekiwakeKotonowaka.
A successful stable, Sadogatake is currently the active stable with the longest continuous presence (59 years) of at least one of its wrestlers in the makuuchi division.[1] Between September 2007 and July 2010, it became the first stable since Musashigawa stable in 2001 to have two wrestlers ranked at ōzeki simultaneously, with Kotomitsuki and Kotoōshū. It happened again between November 2011 and November 2013 with Kotoōshū and Kotoshōgiku. As of January 2023 the stable has 26 wrestlers, three of them being sekitori. In March 2020 Sadogatake-oyakata's son, who also goes by the name of Kotonowaka, reached the top makuuchi division. On the May 2020 banzuke all five sekitori were ranked in the top division, although none were above maegashira 13. The most the stable has ever had in makuuchi simultaneously is seven, in November 1992 and January 1993.
Controversy
In January 2021, junior wrestler Kotokantetsu retired and publicly criticized Sadogatake-oyakata for not supporting him during his sumo career and not allowing him to sit out that month's honbasho despite his fears of contracting COVID-19 after undergoing cardiac surgery.[2] The former Kotokantetsu, whose real name is Daisuke Yanagihara, subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Japan Sumo Association and Sadogatake in March 2023 for ¥4.1 million in monetary damages over claims of being forced to retire from professional sumo and for violations of his human rights, while also alleging that lower division wrestlers in the stable were mistreated.[3] In a statement to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in July 2023, Yanagihara said that he wanted to reveal the actual state of the sumo world "which has been shrouded in mystery in the name of traditional culture," adding his concern that the Japanese media was not accurately covering the issue and that there was a possibility it could be covered up. He alleged that in 2011 he was repeatedly slapped by a senior wrestler with traditional footwear that contained metal. He also told reporters that lower-division wrestlers at the stable were often forced to eat rotten meat during their training. Yanagihara showed reporters a picture he took in July 2017 and sent to his mother using the communications app Line of a package of rib roast allegedly served at the stable that had been expired for 5+1⁄2 years. When asked by Agence France-Presse about the lawsuit in July 2023, the Sumo Association declined to comment.[4][5]
Ring name conventions
Virtually all wrestlers at this stable take ring names or shikona that begin with the character 琴 (read: koto), in deference to the founder, Kotonishiki, and the owners who followed him.
Owners
2005–present: 13th Sadogatake (riji, former sekiwakeKotonowaka)
