Biography

Akebono grew up in Oahu, Hawaii, and attended college on a basketball scholarship. In less than a year, he dropped out of school due to disagreements with his coach and boredom with his coursework. Putting aside his natural interest in language and culture, he followed his father's advise and agreed to visit fellow Hawaiian Jesse Kuhaulua in 1988, who had become a sumo stablemaster in Japan. Before retiring from sumo competition in 1984, Kuhaulua established a string of nearly untouchable records as an ozeki, the second-highest sumo rank. He convinced Rowan to join his stable.

Rowan was so homesick that he cried practically every night for the first six months in Japan, and his Japanese was so bad that he struggled to communicate with his stablemates. However, during practice, Rowan shown incredible power but struggled to maintain his balance due to his towering height and tremendous weight. With determination, he progressively perfected the methods and talents necessary for his professional debut in March 1988. He moved quickly through sumo's lower ranks and junior division, setting performance records along the way. After being promoted to the senior division in 1990, he experienced both achievements and challenges: he had a middling tournament record in 1991, his first full year at that level.

Akebono's fortunes improved considerably in 1992. In May, he won his first tournament championship and was promoted to ozeki level. He won again in the November competition, followed by a second consecutive win in the January 1993 tournament. Following his victory, he was elevated to yokozuna, an achievement no one else had achieved in only 30 competitions.

Akebono won four of his following eight events in 1993-94 and ended with outstanding marks in the remaining four. By mid-1994, however, injuries had began to bother him, and he was forced to miss an increasing number of competitions. Despite setbacks, he returned to the dohyo and retired in 2001 with 11 championships and a respectable total of 566 victories against 198 defeats at the makuuchi level, including a 432-122 record as a yokozuna. Akebono received four Outstanding Performance and two Fighting Spirit awards, and despite not capturing the coveted zensho-yusho, he achieved a 14-1 record on four occasions.
- IMDb mini biography by: Walter Patton