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Hakuho wins in Hawaii's battle of grand champions

Mongolian Hakuho made an impressive debut as grand champion, defeating veteran yokozuna Asashoryu to win the Grand Sumo Tournament in Hawaii on Sunday.

The 22-year-old Hakuho, who two weeks ago became the 69th yokozuna in history and third-youngest wrestler to achieve the revered rank, won all five of his matches on Sunday to advance to the title match against first-day champion Asashoryu.

The titans locked up and jostled for position. They spun around a couple of times before Hakuho powerfully forced his countryman to the corner about 30 seconds into the bout.

Pushing back

Asashoryu tried to push back, but he skidded several feet before passively stepping out of the ring near his water bucket.

It was a rematch of the first day's final, where Asashoryu lifted Hakuho out.

Fans cheered Hakuho as he held the giant trophy. Sumo hasn't had two grand champions competing at the same time since November of 2003 when Asashoryu shared the rank with Hawaii's Musashimaru.

Hakuho defeated Russian Roho and four fellow Mongolians -- Ama, Ryuoh, Kyokutenhou and Kakuryu -- to claim the day-two title, or the Governor's Cup.

In the finals, he defeated the surging sekiwake Ama, one of the smallest men in the elite 40-man field at 125kg.

The average size was 152kg.

Hakuho patiently withstood a charge and a flurry of palm thrusts to the neck and head from Ama before going on to slam him to the ground.

Ama advanced by upsetting the much larger Kotooushu, who is 2.03m and 152kg.

Giant tripped

Ama faked high then grabbed one of the ozeki's legs, tripping up the giant.

Ama also defeated Republic of Georgia's Kokkai, South Korean Kasugaoh and Miyabiyama, a former college sumo champion from Ibaraki, Japan.

Asashoryu, coming off a disappointing 10-5 showing at last month's Summer Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo, was pushed out of the ring by maegashira Kokkai in the second round.

But Asashoryu already clinched a spot in the grand title match with his first-day performance.

Ryuoh upset two higher-ranked opponents on his way to the semi-finals: ozeki Kaio in the quarter-finals and komusubi Toyonoshima in the first round.

Hundreds of enthusiastic fans from Japan attended the exhibition single-elimination tournament, which was the first sanctioned grand event to be held in the US since Las Vegas two years ago.

The last sumo tournament to be held in Hawaii was in 1993.
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