Word: kuhaulua
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When Jesse Kuhaulua went to Japan from his native Hawaii in 1964, he was a 19-year-old, 253-lb. "skinny" kid with a dream of being a professional sumo wrestler. Eight years later he became the first foreigner to win a sumo tournament and went on to fight in a record 1,654 bouts, making him something of a popular legend. Recently Takamiyama, 39, began to feel the combined effects of time and a string of injuries, losing 13 of his last 15 matches. Last week, confronted with a humiliating down-ranking to the third tier of sumo wrestlers...
...half Russian, half Japanese who weighs in at 314 Ibs. and is known professionally as Taiho (loosely, "Giant Bird"), had a bad year in 1967. He injured his left elbow and knee and was out of action for eight months. By contrast, 1967 was a banner year for Jesse Kuhaulua, a 24-year-old from the Hawaiian island of Maui. Of Polynesian-Spanish ancestry, he stands 6 ft. 4 in., weighs in at 315 Ibs. and wrestles under the pseudonym of Takamiyama ("High-View Mountain"). He is the first foreigner with no Japanese blood to be promoted to makuuchi-sumo...
...over in 30 seconds. Springing forward, Taiho ducked low, grasped Takamiyama in a sukuinage, or "scooping throw," dumped him on the ground. Takamiyama was not at all dismayed by his defeat. Nor were the critics. The Tokyo newspaper Hochi Shimbun predicted that Jesse Kuhaulua will win the sumo championship "within a couple of years...
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