 He joined Oguruma stable and made his debut at "maezumo" level in January 2004, the first former amateur "yokozuna" to do so.At the start of his career he was considerably older and more experienced than most of the competition there and quickly worked his way up the ranks, winning two tournament titles in the "jonokuchi" and "sandanme" divisions with perfect 7–0 records.He initially competed under his own surname of Ōnishi, but upon reaching the second highest "jūryō" division in July 2005 he changed his "shikona" to Yoshikaze.