Makuhita Guide: A Sumo-Sized Pokemon That Packs A Punch

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Makuhita, the guts Pokémon, is a Fighting-type Pokémon introduced in Gen 3. It is the pre-evolution of Hariyama.

Both Makuhita and Hariyama are inspired by sumo wrestlers; in fact, it resembles sumo wrestlers in every aspect of its look, personality, and attacks. It is said that Makuhita is tireless, disciplined, and very active. They had a diet to care for themselves and are constantly training to be stronger. They never give up, even when they can’t get up off the floor. Makuhita is capable of slapping itself to keep its spirit up when it is facing a hard battle.

Makuhita is a humanoid, bulky, mostly yellow Pokémon, with a topknot resembling the hairstyle that sumos usually have. It has black hands that look like box gloves, and its foot looks like zōri, the Japanese wooden sandals.

Its name comes from a corruption of “Makushita,” a term used to refer to the fighters in the third-highest sumo division.

Makuhita Summary of Appearances in Pokémon Versions and Media (Games, Anime, Movies)

In the games, you can find Makuhita:

Ruby, Sapphire & Emerald: In Granite Cave and on the Victory Road. You can also get one through trading it with a Slakoth in Rustboro City (Only in Ruby and Sapphire). LeafGreen and FireRed: Only by trading. Diamond, Pearl and Platinum: In Route 225 (after getting the National Dex).

HeartGold & SoulSilver: In the Slowpoke Well, Union Cave, Mt. Mortar, Dark Cave, Whirl Islands, Mt. Silver, Ice Path, Cliff Cave, Digglett’s Cave, Mt. Moon, Cerulean Cave, Rock Tunnel, Seafoam Islands, Victory Road and in the Tohjo Falls (Only using the Hoenn Sound channel on the radio).

Black & White: Unobtainable. You can only get it by trading.

Black 2 & White 2: Only by breeding Hariyama.

X & Y: Only by trading.

Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire: in the Granite Cave. You can get it also by trading it with a Slakoth in Rustboro City.

Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon: In Route 2.

Sword and Shield: Unobtainable.

In the anime, Makuhita is recurrent but mostly has only minor appearances. Makuhita’s first appearance is in Brave the Wave, belonging to Brawly. In this episode, in Ash’s battle against Brawly, Makuhita evolves into Hariyama.

After that, it has other appearances, as we said, mostly minor. It has appeared through all the series, being in more than 30 different episodes.

In the manga, it appeared for the first time in Pokémon Adventures in the episode Stick This in Your Craw, Crawdaunt II, under the ownership of Brawly. He used Makuhita in the gym battle against Sapphire, who used her Lairon, who got defeated by Makuhita. After that, Makuhita evolved into Hariyama, and Sapphire used her Combusken against it and defeated Brawly.

After that, Makuhita appeared in Pokémon Battle Frontier and in Pokémon Ruby-Sapphire.

In the TCG, Makuhita has 14 different cards. Three common ones in EX Ruby & Sapphire, its debut, and then only common cards in EX Deoxys, EX Emerald, EX Delta Species, Great Encounters, Arceus, Undaunted, Boundaries Crossed, Plasma Freeze, Furious Fists, and Sun & Moon. It also has a card in the Lycanroc Half Deck.

Makuhita Evolution Line: When Does Dewpider Evolve?

Makuhita evolves into Hariyama after getting to level 24. Hariyama doesn’t evolve.

Makuhita Stats

Makuhita is one of the weakest Fighting-type Pokémon of the meta. That doesn’t mean it is the best of the tier since there are plenty of better options than Makuhita. Nonetheless, it is used commonly in LC (Little Cup). There, Makuhita gets a bit stronger, primarily because it is the only Fighting-type that can learn Belly Drum.

Let’s check out its abilities since it has some exciting options to make it work:

Abilities

Makuhita can have the following stats:

  • Thick Fat: This ability halves the power of Ice and Fire-type attacks.
  • Guts: With this ability, every time Makuhita gets burned, poisoned or paralyzed, it will get its attack increased by 50%. Also, this ability prevents the burns for halving the attack of who is suffering it.
  • Sheer Force (Hidden Ability): This ability makes that every attacking move that has any additional effects (like a status change, causing the foe to flinch or reducing or increasing stats) gets a 30% power raise but they don’t inflict any additional effect.

Natures

Makuhita’s strategy involves doing strong attacks, this only means that we only want natures that buff its Attack.

  • Lonely (increases Attack, reduces Defense)
  • Brave (increases Attack, reduces Speed)
  • Adamant (increases Attack, reduces Special Attack)
  • Naughty (increases Attack, reduces Special Defense)

You can use Adamant freely since we want Makuhita to handle enough in the battle. But, Makuhita have a pretty decent Attack base stat, so we can think of using a good nature to enhance other stat, which can be Speed.

Then, to do that, we can use the following stats:

  • Timid (Increases Speed, reduces Attack)
  • Hasty (Increases Speed, reduces Defense)
  • Jolly (Increases Speed, reduces Special Attack)
  • Naive (Increases Speed, reduces Special Defense)

Obviously using Jolly for the same reason we should use Adamant.

Stats

Makuhita have the following stats:

  HP Attack Defense Sp. Atk Sp. Def Speed
Base Stats 72 60 30 20 30 25
Favorable Nature 348 240 174 152 174 163

As you can see, Makuhita’s best stat is its HP, followed closely by its Attack. That’s why we decided to boost its speed with Jolly as its nature. We want Makuhita to attack first for the strategy we are going to use. The main problem with this is that Makuhita will need some help from a good Lead that sets Sticky Web (and if it can do it too, some Spikes, Stealth Rocks, or even paralyzing the foe).

Every time you defeat a Makuhita you’ll get 1 EV in HP.

Moves list per level (Gen 7)

Makuhita can learn the following levels through leveling up:

Level Move Type Category Power Accuracy PP
1 Tackle Normal Physical 40 100% 35
1 Focus Energy Normal Status — —% 30
4 Sand Attack Ground Status — 100% 15
7 Arm Thrust Fighting Physical 15 100% 20
10 Fake Out Normal Physical 40 100% 10
13 Force Palm Fighting Physical 60 100% 10
16 Whirlwind Normal Status — —% 20
19 Knock Off Dark Physical 65 100% 20
22 Vital Throw Fighting Physical 70 —% 10
25 Belly Drum Normal Status — —% 10
28 Smelling Salts Normal Physical 70 100% 10
31 Seismic Toss Fighting Physical — 100% 20
34 Wake-Up Slap Fighting Physical 70 100% 10
37 Endure Normal Status — —% 10
40 Close Combat Fighting Physical 120 100% 5
43 Reversal Fighting Physical — 100% 15
46 Heavy Slam Steel Physical — 100% 10

Our primary strategy here will be using Belly Drum. The Belly Drum strategy is pretty familiar with Pokémon that have a lot of HP and Defense stats since they have the chance of managing a hit from almost every source. In fact, Makuhita is the only Fighting-type in LC that can learn it.

Here, we are also going to use Close Combat; it can help us make Makuhita a big sweeper. Heavy Slam can work well, too, since Makuhita is pretty heavy (according to the Pokédex, Makuhita can weigh 190 lbs).

Let’s check out the list per TM/HM:

Moves list per TM/HM (Gen 7)

TM (GEN VII) Move Type Category Power Accuracy PP
TM01 Work Up Normal Status — —% 30
TM06 Toxic Poison Status — 90% 10
TM08 Bulk Up Fighting Status — —% 20
TM10 Hidden Power Normal Special 60 100% 15
TM11 Sunny Day Fire Status — —% 5
TM17 Protect Normal Status — —% 10
TM18 Rain Dance Water Status — —% 5
TM21 Frustration Normal Physical — 100% 20
TM23 Smack Down Rock Physical 50 100% 15
TM26 Earthquake Ground Physical 100 100% 10
TM27 Return Normal Physical — 100% 20
TM31 Brick Break Fighting Physical 75 100% 15
TM32 Double Team Normal Status — —% 15
TM39 Rock Tomb Rock Physical 60 95% 15
TM42 Facade Normal Physical 70 100% 20
TM44 Rest Psychic Status — —% 10
TM45 Attract Normal Status — 100% 15
TM47 Low Sweep Fighting Physical 65 100% 20
TM48 Round Normal Special 60 100% 15
TM52 Focus Blast Fighting Special 120 70% 5
TM56 Fling Dark Physical — 100% 10
TM78 Bulldoze Ground Physical 60 100% 20
TM80 Rock Slide Rock Physical 75 90% 10
TM84 Poison Jab Poison Physical 80 100% 20
TM87 Swagger Normal Status — 85% 15
TM88 Sleep Talk Normal Status — —% 10
TM90 Substitute Normal Status — —% 10
TM94 Surf Water Special 90 100% 15
TM100 Confide Normal Status — —% 20

We have here other cool options if you don’t want to use the Belly Drum strategy, for example, Brick Break can be a great move if you are against a Reflect setter, and even some other good moves like Bulldoze, Rock Slide, and Surf if you want to cover some weaknesses in your team.

Makuhita Strengths

Makuhita is a Fighting-type Pokémon, that means it can resist attacks from the following types:

  • It gets only ½ of the damage against Bug-type.
  • It gets only ½ of the damage against Dark-type.
  • It gets only ½ of the damage against Rock-type.

Makuhita will give no chances to those Dark-type sweepers like Scraggy and Pawniard. The big Rock-type walls like Geodude and Amaura don’t have a chance against Makuhita either. Makuhita can best give Fighting-type attacks to the Ice, Steel, Rock, Normal, and Dark-types. So think about it when you are facing a solid wall like Aron, as an example.

Makuhita Weaknesses

  • It takes x2 damage against Fairy-type.
  • It takes x2 damage against Flying-type.
  • It takes x2 damage against Psychic-type.

Makuhita is pretty bulky, but that doesn’t mean that Flying, Fairy, and Psychic-types (especially the last two since they mostly have Special attacks) can take Makuhita down. Noibat, Munna, Swirlix, and Elgyem can quickly get rid of Makuhita with their attacks.

Also, Makuhita can’t deal much damage against Bug, Fairy, Poison, Psychic, and Flying-types, so don’t think using Makuhita against them unless you know you can have a significant advantage.

Makuhita Moveset

Let’s take a look at what we want Makuhita to do on the battlefield:

  • Belly Drum
  • Close Combat
  • Knock Off
  • Heavy Slam

With a Sitrus Berry as its item, Thick Fat as its ability, and Jolly as its nature.

Evs: 20 HP / 196 Atk / 36 Def / 236 Spe

First of all, Makuhita will not be the first to be on the battlefield. You need someone to set you up some Sticky Webs to work. Dewpider is a great option to do that work since it can have a great Speed stat and have Icy Wind, which can work pretty well. Every single rival of Makuhita has to be slower than it for this strategy to work.

After starting with your Sticky Web setter, you now have to use Makuhita. The first move it has to do is Belly Drum, this will reduce 50% of its maximum HP, but it will increase its Attack by 4x. The Sitrus Berry will activate after that and will heal you a bit. Now all you have to do is attack your rivals with Close Combat until you win!

You have Knock Off in the case you are against a Psychic-type and Heavy Slam if you are against a Fairy-type, so Makuhita is pretty much a bulky sweeper right now.

You can build Makuhita in another way, maybe increasing its Attack or Defense to make it bulkier, but the problem is that Makuhita can’t learn good moves to buff itself (outside of Belly Drum). That, and also knowing that you can’t use Baton Pass in the LC tier (according to the Smogon rules), doesn’t let us have some other options to build Makuhita.

Makuhita isn’t the best in this tier; in fact, there are much better Pokémon that can do the Belly Drum strategy, being faster and even having more HP. If you really want Makuhita to work, then its team has to be the best to help it out.

Makuhita in a video

And in this video, we can see a Makuhita with a team that is working for him. This Makuhita uses the Flame Orb + Guts strategy, burning itself to get the Guts buff. After that, it uses Belly Drum too. Its team is always protecting it to prevent Makuhita from receiving damage.

FAQs

Question: What is Makuhita based on?

Answer: Makuhita, as well as Hariyama, its evolution, is based on sumo wrestlers. Everything about it resembles a sumo fighter, like the top of its head, its body and its foot.

Question: Where does Makuhita’s name come from?

Makuhita’s name comes from the corruption of Makushita which is the 3rd highest rank in the sumo divisions.

Question: Which is the best strategy for Makuhita?

Makuhita doesn’t have good options to build a strategy with it, but the best option you have for it is using Belly Drum while surrounding it with a great team to protect it.

Conclusion

The main problem with Makuhita is the move list it can learn since it doesn’t have plenty of good options to create a strategy. There are no good moves besides Bulk Up, Work Up, and Belly Drum, and those are merely offensive options, and Makuhita doesn’t have the best Defense either. We think that the problem with its unbalanced moves list is because it didn’t get into Sword and Shield.

If you really desire to use Makuhita, it is better if you surround it with great defensive Pokémon, you need a Sticky Web setter, and if you can have a Reflect and Light Screen setter, it can be helpful too. Good luck with your battles!

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