dada78641

Brief news article in English: https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2024/04/11/akebono-giant-sumo-world-proud-hawaiian-dies-54/

That's incredibly sad, to pass away at only 54. He was active before I started watching sumo, but I've still seen a lot of his bouts on Youtube and he was truly a magnificent wrestler in a magnificent era. I was still really holding out hope that he'd be able to somehow recover from landing in a wheelchair through physical therapy, but it wasn't to be.

Not a good start to the basho for my favorites, Hokutofuji and Kirishima, both going 0-4. On the plus side, I've actually been watching it live despite not being in Japan, since I've been so jetlagged my sleeping schedule got reset to where I wake up at 6 am.

Yeah, it's a truly incredible situation and I honestly can't imagine that this is the ideal outcome for the victims of bullying. The end result is much too disruptive, to the point where future victims simply would not want to come forward and everybody involved is strongly motivated to solve things quietly and internally rather than through the proper channels. Which, of course, is not going to solve the problem, and will lead to the next Hokuseiho with a gigantic CV of abuse because it isn't stopped. To me this solution feels like it's designed to make the NSK's life easier, not the lives of abused wrestlers.

Guys, please, a hostess club is not a whore house. There's no prostitution taking place there even secretly. It's honestly just pretty girls who pour your drink and chat with you, nothing more.

I'm conflicted on whether it was wiping a tear or a canceled facepalm.

Just seeing a big report on the news about the incident. Video of Hakuho and Hokuseiho apologizing in front of the cameras, Hakuho saying "I failed to protect my disciples and I accept responsibility." Can't quite find a video of it yet but I'm sure it'll get posted soon. It's big mainstream news here and one can imagine how much this damages Hakuho's reputation as stablemaster from here on out. Whatever plans he had for changing the NSK or sumo, I think he can pretty much forget about them.

Considering how numerous the types of abuse are, it really feels like there's no possibility Hakuho didn't know what was going on. You can't exactly pretend it's nothing when there's this much and it's this bizarre. Like others have said it's all just so disappointing. I really wasn't expecting Hokuseiho to be this kind of person, and I wasn't expecting Hakuho to be so lackadaisical about protecting his new heya that he allowed all this to happen.

Is there even the slightest chance that Hakuoho doesn't get the fighting spirit prize? What a boss. He's destined for greatness.

I'm glad Hokutofuji is doing well this basho. I've been a huge fan of his sumo since his initial makuuchi successes that had people singing his praises, but he's generally had a rough time. I hope this is not just one exceptionally good basho, but more a sign that he's fixed the issues that held him back in the past.

I don't know if there's a better place to put this (let me know if so) but if anyone wanted to see the first Ukrainian juryo wrestler's 新十両 interview, from day 3, I made a copy of it here.

Extremely impressive by Tobizaru to keep standing after all those charges by the yokozuna, even if he's clearly not fighting at full strength. If his mawashi had been slightly more tight I think he would've lost that bout, though.

Looks like Terunofuji found a new training partner. Terunofuji vs Nagoya governor Oumura:

I made this screenshot a couple of days ago (not sure when, maybe a week ago) and forgot to post, but... If you ever feel bad about not remembering the kanji for people's shikona, don't feel bad, even NHK gets it wrong sometimes!

Yeah, I'm actually feeling positive about Asanoyama given how he's had a rough time clawing his way back to where he was before. And by that I mean he hasn't had his usual level of training opportunities. I would expect him to slide backwards a little bit because of something like that but he seems to have maintained his previous level of skill pretty well.

I feel for Ichinojo. It's clear he's in a really bad place, and when you're in a situation like that it's very easy to fall into addictive behaviors. Also, maybe I'm being too charitable by saying this, but having chronic back pain that can't be properly alleviated by pain medication is certainly something that can drive people to drink. I'm not saying that's the explanation, but maybe it made the problem worse and made him feel even more like he has no relief in sight.

Really a shame to see him go. He was always one of my favorites to watch. But I guess I can understand it if back pain is the main issue, as that can be extremely debilitating and it might just be that he reached his limit. I hope being out of sumo makes it a bit easier to do something about that.

Apparently Terunofuji now has a website, as announced on Twitter: https://terunofuji-official.jp/ I'm not aware of any other active yokozuna having had a website like this, aside from small things like personal blogs (like the one Hakuho had). This is a full on professionally made marketing site for just him. But then I honestly haven't looked into this that much so let me know if I'm wrong about that. There's not much to see there now though. There's one single video, and one single photo, and both of them show a "you must log in" error when you try to click on them. At first I thought that was a mistake but it seems to be intentional, it's designed as a paid members-only space, ¥1100 per month or ¥10000 per year, with a "premium" version for three times that amount.

He just posted this on Twitter: I'm assuming this also includes Sumo Forum, even though forums predate the term "social media". Or maybe he'll still check in with us here every once in a while since this place is much more low traffic/low time investment. Bit of a shame since he's our premier inside man, but I guess taking a social media break isn't the worst idea for your time and health.

Just a small note on this, but turning a video into a highlight causes Twitch to re-encode it completely, lowering the quality. So if you're planning on making local copies of streams it's best to do it from the "recent streams" version if possible, before it becomes a highlight.

It's incredibly sad, not just because it's the gateway to watching sumo for a lot of people, but also because there's very little historic sumo available to watch anywhere. It gets aired on NHK and then it vanishes into the aether. Youtubers covering the bashos not only provided a way for people to watch sumo outside of Japan, but also provided historical context by preserving people's reactions from the time of the tournament itself. To anyone who's sitting on sumo content that they're now unable to upload, I want to suggest the Internet Archive as a possible alternative. It's not immune from takedowns either, but it's far less of a target in general. I have a couple of sumo related videos on there, including a full day of coverage because it was Hakuho's commentary debut. But I do believe that nothing is safe if it's on the open internet and anyone who produces or stores sumo content should keep local copies if possible.

I wonder if Hokuseiho's 10-5 is enough to get him from J6 to the bottom of makuuchi. I'm feeling probably not, and he'll end up J1 or J2?

Yeah, absolutely it was a real physical injury, not just Takayasu being sad. This guy's been a rikishi for longer than today, he's not gonna lie down on the dohyo throwing a fit just because he lost a bout, even if it was an important one. Let's not kid ourselves. These guys are always on a knife's edge with the tachiai, especially when they go in head first. It's not at all surprising that something like this could happen, even if most of the time it goes well. It's like how a kachiage usually doesn't result in a KO, but... sometimes it does. It's actually more of a miracle that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

Although I can understand that the henka was a very anticlimactic move, I guess I can understand the reasoning for it from his perspective. If it works, it keeps him completely fresh for the next bout, while instilling the fear of another henka in the very henka-able Takakeisho. It very visibly made a difference in the bout with Takakeisho being unable to put sufficient power into the tachiai. All things considered, I've got really mixed feelings about the outcome of the basho. It's sad that Takayasu lost yet another golden opportunity for a yusho through a henka and a really unfortunate head contact of all things. And while it's nice for Abi that he managed to make such an immense comeback after his punishment for flouting the COVID-19 guidelines and coming a millimeter away from having to retire, I somehow find that I still can't quite be happy for him. (Lame as this might sound, I actually never quite forgave him for that SNS scandal, which permanently caused all wrestlers to be disallowed from posting on social media... that was an absolutely astounding level of stupidity on his part.) But well, what's done is done, and either way it's clear that Abi is going to be an absolute top class wrestler and title contender for a very long time. I'd be surprised if this was his last yusho.

Shame that he's leaving sumo so suddenly during the basho. He was one of the absolute rank-and-file makuuchi mainstays, only very briefly dipping his toe into juryo a few times over the years and I'll miss his presence. On a side note, it's somehow nice that he's opening something other than a chanko-nabe restaurant. I actually kinda feel like next time I'm in Japan I should do a Tokyo former rikishi restaurant tour. I don't know if anyone has a big list of former sumo wrestler restaurants anywhere, but I'm sure you can make a nice long route by now.