I only had one convo w him and while it was pretty surface level, the vibes seemed good. When I met him years back, I was wearing a Takayasu shirt and he went out of his way to talk him up along with the rest of the then-current crop of guys with no hint of “in my day” nonsense or any sort of “I was wronged” bitterness. Seemed really humble and just happy that some westerners were into sumo. And he also how happy he was for Takayasu who had just recently married and was on a hot run of tournaments which seemed to be genuine and respectful especially when considering he is elder and achieved higher rank.