Kisenosato suffered a third and fatal loss at the hands of Goeido in his yokozuna bid, leaving the Naruto ozeki a discouraged wreck as the first week of action wrapped up at the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament on Saturday.

With everything on the line, Kisenosato did the unthinkable by crumbling in front of a sold-out crowd at Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, leaving his promotion bid in tatters with no hope of reaching the 13 wins necessary to reach sumo’s summit this time out.

Meanwhile, yokozuna Hakuho was once again the man of steel, pulverizing Chiyotairyu in the day’s finale to stay undefeated at 7-0. Rival yokozuna Harumafuji, ozeki Kotooshu and rank-and-filer Kaisei trail at 6-1.

Goeido got a turbo charge at the tachiai and proceeded to muscle Kisenosato out in a matter of seconds for only the sekiwake’s second win. The postmortem was not pretty as the surly ozeki sulked his way back to the locker room.

“I finally was able to perform the sumo I know how. My sumo had been very disappointing until today,” said Goeido.

Hakuho unleashed a bone-crushing body slam on Chiyotairyu (5-2) before pulling the No. 3 maegashira to the dohyo surface. The yokozuna is three wins shy of becoming the only wrestler since the start of the Showa Era to have two 40-win streaks.

Harumafuji hit Mongolian countryman Kyokutenho (3-4) with a vicious throat grab in the penultimate bout, and outflanked his opponent from behind.

Kotooshu got his long arms around the back of Aminishiki (2-5) and sent his opponent sprawling with an overarm technique.

Also at ozeki, Kotoshogiku took the bait hook, line and sinker, for the second day in a row, when sekiwake Myogiryu (3-4) made a sneaky sidestep maneuver to send the ozeki tumbling over the edge.

Kakuryu manhandled Takekaze (1-6) in a short exchange of thrusts, pulling down the top-ranked maegashira with a shoulder swing to stay two off the pace.

In earlier matches, Ikioi (3-4) found himself on the losing side after ringside judges ruled the top of his foot scraped the sand first, although he threw Kitataiki (4-3) with an overarm throw at the edge, and Georgian Gagamaru finally got in the winner’s circle with a forceout of Fujiazuma (1-6).