The World No. 1 right now is Japan’s Sanshiro Murao. He’s a formidable player. The World No. 2 is Georgia’s Luka Maisuradze. Murao’s fought and beaten him four times.
He’s had some difficulties with Uzbekistan’s Davlat Bobonov, whom he lost to the first two times they fought (in the 2019 Osaka Grand Slam and 2021 Budapest World Championships. But Murao won the next one, the 2022 Paris Grand Slam. He lost to Bobonov again in the 2023 Tashkent Grand Slam. But the last time they fought, at the 2024 Antalya Grand Slam, Murao won it. So, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. He’s lost more times than he’s won but it’s pretty close.
One person he’s lost to even more is Georgia’s Lasha Bekauri, whom he has fought five time and lost all five of them. The first time they fought was when both of them were still juniors. It was in the final of the 2018 World Junior Championships, were Bekauri countered Murao for a massive ippon. After that, they fought at the 2019 Qingdao World Masters. There, Bekauri got by with waza-ari win.
After that, they fought three more times and each time, it was Murao who scored first. But Bekauri always found a way to win it in the end. At the 2023 Doha World’s, Murao scored first with an uchimata for waza-ari. Murao quickly equalized the scores with a sumi-gaeshi. Shortly after that as Murao attacked, Bekauri countered him with a reverse (wrong-leg) tani-otoshi for ippon.
Their next match up was in the final of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Again, Murao scored first, with a nice kosoto-gake for waza-ari. Bekauri, did a wraparound takedown which evened up the scores. Then, at the edge of the mat, Murao tried to do kosoto again. As they fell, Bekauri put his right foot in and placed it right behind Murao’s right heel. This was deemed to be a kouchi. Ippon was given to Bekauri.
Their fifth and final match-up (to date) was in the 2025 Mixed Teams World Championships where once again, Murao scored first. This time it was a kosoto for waza-ari. In the final minute, when he made the mistake of attacking Bekauri’s lead leg with Kosoto, the Georgian counter-attacked with sumi-gaeshi for ippon.
It’s clear that Murao has the ability to score against Bekauri. He’s done that in the past three matches that they had. And he came very close to winning but each time, Bekauri was able to come up with the winning throw before regular time ended.
They have yet to fight this year. Will Murao be able to finally turn the tables on Bekauri when they fight for the sixth time?
