Tokushoryu

徳勝龍 誠 Tokushōryū Makoto
Tokushōryū at the Aki basho in September 2011
Personal information
Born	Makoto Aoki (1986-08-22) August 22, 1986 (age 30) Nara, Nara, Japan
Height	1.82 m (5 ft 11 1⁄2 in)
Weight	175 kg (386 lb)
Career
Stable	Kise
University	Kinki University
Current rank	see below
Debut	January, 2009
Highest rank	Maegashira 4 (May, 2015)
Championships	1 (Sandanme) 1 (Jonokuchi)
* Up to date as of June 26, 2017.

Tokushōryū Makoto (born August 22, 1986 as Makoto Aoki) is a professional sumo wrestler from Nara, Japan. His highest rank to date has been maegashira 7. He has both a lower division jonokuchi and a sandanme division championship.

Makoto Aoki first tried out sumo at a dojo outside his school when he was a fourth grader in elementary school. He continued into junior high school at another dojo then transferred to Meitoku Gijuku High School, which was well known for its sumo program. In his second year there he took an inter-high school championship and in his third year he was in the top 8 group of high school wrestlers. He entered a management program at Kinki University and also continued amateur sumo. He was not able to reach attain university yokozuna status, but did manage to win some regional championships.

As he was involved in sumo much of his school life, many current and former wrestlers were his teammates during his amateur sumo years at school. At his high school, was from his year, and Chiyozakura and Dewaōtori were his upper classmen. In university Homarefuji was an upperclassman, and Takarafuji, in his year, was in the same management course as he was.

In his fourth year in university he made the decision to join Kise stable and first stepped into the ring for the January 2009 tournament, along with other contemporaries such as Takarafuji, Kimikaze and Takanoiwa. Despite his successes in amateur sumo, he never achieved student yokozuna status so was not allowed to enter professional sumo at an elevated rank (see makushita tsukedashi) and had to start at the bottom of the ranks.

His skill and experience allowed him a string of winning tournaments from his entry into sumo, and he also took the bottom division jonokuchi championship in his debut tournament, followed by a perfect 7–0 sandanme championship in September of that same year. He was promoted to the makushita division in the November tournament following his championship. He spent all of 2010 in makushita and had only two losing tournaments until reaching makushita 2 in November of that year. Though on the cusp of being promoted to the salaried ranks of jūryō, he only managed a 1–6 record. He changed his ring name from his surname to his current one in January 2011. He spent most of 2011 working his way through makushita much has he had in 2010. On reaching makushita 1 in the September tournament he put in an impressive 5-2 record and achieve promotion to jūryō on his second chance.