Make-koshi describes a losing record in a professional sumo tournament.
A wrestler has make-koshi when defeats outnumber victories by the end of the tournament. In a standard fifteen-bout top-division schedule, that normally means seven wins or fewer. The result often leads to demotion on the next official ranking sheet, although the effect depends on the wrestler’s current rank and the number of losses.
Make-koshi is the counterpart of kachi-koshi, a winning record. These terms are used throughout professional sumo because rankings are strongly tied to tournament performance. A wrestler can suffer make-koshi without being eliminated from the tournament; bouts continue through the final day regardless of the record.
The term does not identify the tournament champion. A championship is decided by the best record in a division, while make-koshi simply describes an individual wrestler’s balance of wins and losses. This distinction is useful when reading Japanese sumo reports and ranking announcements.