After Bulgarian grappler Kotooshu was promoted to ozeki at the end of 2005, he spoke of his relief at discarding the image of a sweet-toothed boy whose hobby was baking caramel-stuffed cakes.
Fed up with comparisons to soccer prince David Beckham, the 25-year-old goliath insisted there was "no more cake baking" and preferred to talk business, chiefly, obtaining sumo's ultimate prize of promotion to yokozuna.
Strange that now the moment of truth has arrived, promotion is the only thing he doesn't want to talk about.