Kozaru

Too bad sumo doesn't allow the comeback, like Hogan and Flair!

Ha! It's now more than 7 years later.

That's an awesome photo.

Or a really boring one. Check out the span from January 2004 to November 2005. 12 tournaments, Asashoryu won 11 of them, and only 2 went to a playoff. Asa often clinched before Day 15, even on Day 13 on a couple of occasions, if I recall. That was not exciting. We've been spoiled for the last 8 basho with a tonne of playoffs and exciting yusho races. But it appears Hakuho might be greater than even Asa in his prime was. So what does that mean for the next 2 years?

Oops, the general admission tickets.... that's a little embarrassing for me, but not completely. Problem with those is the line-up you have to do to get them on many days. It might be nice to be able to buy family tickets in advance so people can plan properly. Or family prices on a masu-seki, which is the preferred Japanese style it seems. And that deal still doesn't help the high school students, who often have their own disposable income and are not known as big sumo attendees. Sure you (might) lose a bit of money in the short-term, but it's an investment in your future fans and even future rikishi.

I was saying to my friend that the Kyokai over-reacted to the soccer thing by suspending him for 2 basho. With this incident being more serious, they had to be harsher. So what about a longer suspension? How many basho? 4? 6? The problem is that if you suspend him for 4-6 basho, he ain't coming back, so it was an effective retirement notice. If they had suspended him for 1 or 2 basho, he might have stayed, but they make themselves look stupid for the 2 basho soccer suspension.

Ummm, you sure that's why? I think other people will have different ideas, and have said so in this forum before. I regret ever making the Takamisakari comment in my post. Erasing that, the question stands. Did Asashoryu sell more tickets than he cost them? If your answer is no, and if like Nishi you think that Asa turned people off, then we should be able to predict an INCREASE in ticket sales over the next few years with his departure. Is that right? It seems like the logical conclusion to the line of reasoning being presented. I'll take that bet, although I cancel it if a serious Japanese contender arises, as that obviously changes the circumstances completely. In my opinion, it wasn't Asa turning people off or driving kids away. It's the men in black. (One of) The men in black ordered that kid beaten to death. The men in black inexplicably don't have a children's price for sumo tickets, or a family pass, or anything else that would encourage parents to bring their kids, or high school students to think it's affordable to pay their own way. The men in black say to little girls that they can be governor, Prime Minister or even Empress, but there's no way they'll ever be able to step into the ring to present an award if they are. It's the men in black, Scully! How about selling family passes? Open up the entire back 3 rows as general admission and sell packs of tickets for an adult with kids at a discount price. That's how baseball got my dad to bring me and my brothers as often as he did. Fukuoka basho, I'm looking at you. Chiyo's gone and Kaio's gonna be gone soon, unless he gets his motherboard and power cell changed, so then what are you gonna do?

The flip side of that is that Asashoryu's continuous bad behaviour and scandals turns many people off. He did nothing to make parents think they would want their kid to join that world. What about inspiring Mongolian kids? You know, the real future contenders for yusho? And what about murder turning off Japanese kids? Are you disputing that Asa put butts in seats? If you agree that he did, do you also think that hurts sumo in the recruiting department? So we can only choose from the 2 extremes? You think Asa's behaviour in the ring bordered on pro-wrestling? That's not right at all, it was nowhere close to that. Nobody for a little middle ground (closer to the hinkaku than pro-wrestling)?

You're right, it is somewhat laughable. And a free democracy in selection of board members is also not one of those virtues, as we learned this week. I'm sure that an undefined group of Japanese people also expect the board to be chosen using the old rules of "wait your turn", rather than voting for the ones who have the best ideas. (Edit: I forgot to mention blatant sexism not allowing women to present the awards in the ring) Some old values are good, others need to die. The simple fact that the values are old is no reason to keep them around. I'll stand by my claim that a guy like Asashoryu is a bigger draw for sumo than a guy like Hakuho (hopefully nobody has stats to shoot that down). That reflects the current desires of the current Japanese people. They just need to get used to the idea being openly stated. If you ask people, everybody wants to go home from work early (ie. on time), but the first person who actually does will get criticised.

Asa puts butts in seats. I can could picture people saying, "I want to go see Asashoryu fight." I can't picture nearly as many saying, "I want to go see Hakuho fight." Hakuho is a great fighter, but his sumo is boring and he's boring. Asa's sumo is was exciting and he's a fiery personality. If sumo fans want respectful dignity, why is Takamisakari so popular? I think people make bad assumptions about what the Japanese want (setting myself up for a comeback about the irony of my comment).

One mans boredom is another mans hinkaku. I think he's referring to the inevitable Hakuho yusho clinched on Day 1 of each basho. It was like that with Asa for a long time. Everybody was desperate for some excitement until Kotooshu, and later Hakuho, came along.

I think we'll see some wrestlers blossom without him around - guys like Harumafuji... hey even Kotooshu might stop looking so terrified when there's serious winning to be done. Well just from the fact that they'll replace Asa in the torikumi with a Maegashira, it should mean one more win per basho for Kotooshu, Haruma and Baruto. This is going to help Baruto's Ozeki run. Even Kisenosato might be able to take a yusho if Hakuho withdraws from a basho. He's certainly capable of challenging any of the Ozeki, including Baruto. Hakuho's income will increase now that he doesn't have to share the kensho and yusho bonuses. He must be the happiest guy on Earth right now (possibly not including Asa, who might be very happy to blow this pop-stand).

My gut feeling is that Asa has little chance to break it himself, but if he gets fired, we could see Hakuho break it in 25 basho (minimum required: 21 basho). Asa staying could slow Hakuho down enough to allow a new challenger to emerge. Thoughts?

And Hakuho is now unopposed. Who will be the next to beat him in a yusho race? And when will that be?

Oh no!

With no Asa, Hakuho could likely take 10-11 of the next 12 tournaments. That would only bring him up to weeks after his 27th birthday, and put him within 10 of the record. Who's going to stop him from getting at least that far, besides an injury? I think that part is nearly guaranteed. After he's there, another 10 championships over 4 years would be do-able. Most people on here seem to think we're a long, long way away from the next Yokozuna, and Hak would need to be seriously opposed soon to derail his record hopes. With no Asa, and no other serious competition, the record could fall in just over 4 years. It's really a matter of timing. Asa was very fortunate in this respect, with nobody else able to regularly win 12 matches in a tournament during his solo reign. How long is it before the next contender arises? I hope we're never going to find out about this, because I'd like Asa to stay.

This seems like an odd prediction considering that Asa has won 3 of the last 7 tournaments. You think he's got nothing left in the tank?

Why are people acting like they could never commit a foul in a sport, even a serious one, just once? It's a sport and it's a foul. It happened once. Nobody was injured. It's been 7 years. Move on. My complaint is that the "ever-increasing" list that people are making is full of petty grievances that should have been left alone. I see 2 serious incidents on the list, one of which is the current incident, and the other which is the aftermath of the foul, which strangely people are less concerned with than the foul itself. The rest of the list is people over-reacting. That's my opinion, and you're entitled to your opinion of what qualifies as a serious incident.

So if I'm playing football (soccer) and make a handball, I should be tarnished for life and possibly expelled? It couldn't have been an accident? If I'm playing hockey and cross-check, I shouldn't just go to the penalty box, but should be forced to sit out for the season? Sports have rules. Sometimes they're broken intentionally, sometimes they're broken by accident. I asked for video of this hair-pull as I have not seen it. Was it an accident? And if he did it, even intentionally, he was disqualified and lost the match. He has never done it again. One could have said, "Oh, he did it in his second tournament as a Yokozuna, that means he'll be doing it frequently!" But that would be wrong, as it was a statistic based on one, and he has not done it in more than 30 tournaments since then. He could go another million basho without doing it, if such a thing were possible. You break the rules of sport and you get a penalty, you don't get all the shit Asa got over it. Nobody was hurt, except possibly in the aftermath, which is another story. To compare it to murder as you did, is just silly. Murder is a permanent injury to a person and the people around them. I know you do amateur sumo, but those guys don't have a nice mage to pull, so you never know if you could ever do it accidentally.

Us "people" are not Yokozuna in sumo. Yokozuna in sumo are, like it or not, held to the highest possible standards everything-wise, and I most certainly hold them to a higher standard than I hold myself. Then maybe it's just me who holds himself to the highest possible (within reason) standard. I wouldn't expect anything from Asa that I couldn't do myself, if we're talking about ethics. As an athlete, of course he's better than me and I could not meet his standard.

It's also the ONLY time EVER a yokozuna was disqualified. Asashoryu is no longer 23 years old btw so what's the excuse these days? I'm aware that it was the only time a Yokozuna has been disqualified, but that doesn't change my point. You know the problem with making statistics based on one, right? It was one time. He might wrestle the next million matches without ever doing it again. Takanohana might have done it if he had wrestled just one more match. Hakuho might do it next basho. Unless it happens twice or more, it's really difficult to derive any meaning from it, and it therefore doesn't say much about Asa. Now Aran, who has done it twice recently, we can start to get a picture of. As for the excuse these days, I'm not defending what he just did (or is accused of). I wrote that it's terrible. But my point is that many of the other things people are using against him are not a big deal, or happened just one time. This is the biggest incident there has been, the others should have been left alone. People should not try to hold others to a higher standard than they hold themselves, and perhaps the high standards people have for others in Japan is a reason why so many people here kill themselves when they can't meet those standards.

I was more thinking along the lines of being the first Yokozuna ever to be disqualified, not attending the old shisho's funeral, damaging your opponent's car, skipping Kyokai events that a lot of people attend with the excuse that you are sick and then be caught on camera playing football... That first/third one was nearly 7 years ago, when he was 23 years old (how many of us didn't doing anything irresponsible or dumb when we were 23?). And is not one disqualification an accident or mistake? (please link video if you have it, YouTube search turned up nothing). It's not like he made a habit of it. That's one disqualification in how many hundreds of matches as Yokozuna? The second and fourth are not great, but not disgraces in my mind. People try to hold the Yokozuna to a higher standard than they hold themselves, and that bothers me. So when you comment on next week's disgrace, but the biggest previous incident was 7 years ago, I have to speak up. People have a very long memory when Asashoryu does something wrong, but a pretty bad memory for the things politicians do.

The NEXT disgrace? Like lifting your arms in the air? Maybe that's a problem with this country. People would actually compare lifting your arms in the air, or not taking citizenship, with breaking a guy's nose and possibly threatening to kill him. One is a disgrace, the others are not. Asashoryu gets more press than the stable that killed the boy. And if punching a guy in the nose is the worst thing he ever does, that's probably better than nearly everybody on this forum. (Perhaps the last sentence is an exaggeration. I won't stand by it if anybody wants to challenge.)

I'm watching news right now and see no mention of this story. Perhaps that tells us something about the truth of it, or maybe it will just take another day to hit the major media. OK, now it's there.

I've been a fan of Asa's and have supported him here in the past, but if this is true, it's too much. Dismissal might be warranted. And this brings me back to the dismissal of the Russians for marijuana. I don't know why marijuana (which usually just makes people calm and sleepy) is illegal, but alcohol (which makes people violent) is not. Whether you like alcohol or not, it is a plague on society, influencing domestic violence, accidents, unwanted pregnancies, addictions, etc. Asa would not be the first otherwise-decent person to do something dumb while he's drunk. Drinking yourself stupid, as seemingly all rikishi do, is acceptable, but smoking a joint isn't. You can argue that one is legal and the other isn't, but just being legal doesn't mean it should be acceptable for sumo. Wearing a t-shirt is legal, but not acceptable for sumo. Driving a car is legal, but you get the point.