Next year's Hawai'i Basho at Blaisdell Arena could be the final official home state appearance by Jesse Kuhaulua in a history-making 43-year sumo career.

A spokesman for the Japan Sumo Association in Tokyo and a spokeswoman for tournament promoter, Dormtech Hawaii Inc., here said the tournament will be June 9 and 10 and feature a full contingent of sumotori from the sport's top division.

It will be the first tournament held here in 14 years and likely will mark the last official stop in Hawai'i by the Maui-born Kuhaulua, who runs the Azumazeki stable.

Kuhaulua will be 63 next year and JSA rules require retirement by age 65. Kuhaulua said he will begin looking to selling the stable he started soon after his 1984 retirement. "Next year I should know what the future holds," he said.

A former Baldwin High football player who took up amateur sumo, Kuhaulua debuted in Japan in 1964. He became the first foreign-born sumotori to win the Emperor's Cup, symbolic of a tournament championship, the 1972 Nagoya Basho.

An elbow injury in 1983 ended his ring career a year later. Kuhaulua and Wai'anae's Musashimaru, a retired yokozuna who coaches in the Musashigawa stable, are Hawai'i's last active links to a sport in which local athletes were mainstays for more than 35 years.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com.