Ask any top-level sumo wrestler what the most significant moment of his career was and — to a man — they are likely to respond with their promotion to the second-tier jūryō division.
It is at that precise moment — when a rikishi becomes a sekitori — that everything changes for the better.
Unpaid struggle turns into a relatively comfortable salaried life in the limelight, with so many of sumo’s harshest aspects being replaced by perks that promotion to jūryō from makushita is often referred to as the difference between heaven and hell.