Yamanashi

If you mean by next basho, I'd think not (it's never happened before). Of course, we've never had a guy who wins EVERY "spirited rikishi" award he's eligible for, so let's think positive.

Incidentally, welcome back Eikokurai!

The real pros will perhaps see this and comment, but my understanding is that after going banzuke-gai (slipping completely off the banzuke), a rikishi must go back through Maezumo: not to check that they know how to bow, etc., but to see if they are really physically OK to return to action.

He's lucky -- they put cattle down for that.

Yep, as predicted. He won't be hanging onto Juryo by his teeth next basho, so no sense in injuring himself further. He only had a band on his right arm on day 8, and didn't looked stressed by his yorikiri of Daiseizan, so he must have gotten injured later.

Day 9, Juryo, Oshoumi has significant taping on his left shoulder. Against Fujiseiun, he hits an HNH and does a "so, anyway" look like a real veteran. 9-0. Tsurugisho (8-1) is next up for him; I doubt there will be a rare zensho Yusho this basho, but Oshoumi is safe in Juryo for a couple of basho, and Tsurugisho might get back to Makuuchi soon. Chiyomaru is 0-9 and looks worse than Onosho.

I'm surprised that he only lost once to koshikudake (inadvertent collapse). Also, no ashitori leg picks (though it's probably hard to reach down there and get it). My kudos go to the guy who beat him by utchari in 2000 (though he was a svelte 187 kg then).

Jd6e Honma with a fusen loss on day 6 to go 0-3; he may be out.

Notes on a few day 5 Juryo bouts: 1) Nabatame and Wakaikari conked pretty hard at the tachiai; Wakaikari was reeling a little when Nabatame hit him with a regular thrust that hit right on the button and sent Wakaikari down like a sack of cement. 2) Aonishiki played the ol' Loose Mawashi Band on Oshoumi; at the end it came down to Oshoumi hitting the throw first and Aonishiki slipping through his counterthrow. 3) Onosho looks shot. He's done. He's got more tape than Ampex, on both knees, ankles, arm ... If he goes kyujo tomorrow it will be 0-4-11, 1-4-10, 1-4-10 his last three basho. Does he have a kabu waiting? 4) Tsurugisho looked pretty p*ssed right after the shove at the end of his match. Checking the db, the previous match between them was day 14 of Aki 2024. In that match, Hakuyozan had Tsurugisho trapped along the tawara, running sideways. Hakuyozan pushed him out, then followed him for three more steps still pushing while Tsurugisho was out. Nothing diabolical, but Tsurugisho didn't like it -- his bow was a 2 mm nod of the head and a scowl.

"Hey, newbie, Araiso Oyakata wants another rice ball, hurry it up!"

Shodai gets a lot of advice from people. Recently someone told him "you should emulate successful rikishi". He notices that Ichiyamamoto and Abi have been doing fairly well, so he decides to use their blazing tsuppari attack; however, he doesn't practice the technique beforehand -- "I'm a Nodai graduate, so I'm smart enough to figure it out." This doesn't go well against Onosato. While Onosato is surprised, he has little trouble handling the clumsy thrusts. Undaunted, Shodai later asks his stablemates if they can teach him how to apply an okuridashi at the tachiai.

I hadn't noticed before how much Aonishiki looks like a young Gagamaru.

J13W Kotoeiho tries the same thing ("EI-ho, EI-ho") , but the foreign fans boo him.

"My mommy says you should work more on your ankles ... gambare!"

I hope he stays in the paid ranks, at the very least for his personality and sense of humor. NOTE: The two men on the left have pretty lame pushing technique; OTOH, the man on the extreme right looks intimidating just standing there!

Other heya rikishi are Oshoryu and Yamane

Rest of article not available to me, but from what I read there is an Ikebukuro fukubukuro (or, "Pond Bag lucky bag") given out by Tobu.

Thanks for "throwing out the first pitch" for Ridiculous Predictions this basho. In a move that creates much controversy, including twelve intai in protest, fist fights in the Diet, and a temporary ceasefire in the Ukraine-Russia war, the official scorer declares the bout a yasumi.

This November two years ago was his last basho as Ozeki ... it seems longer than that. Since then he's 81-84.

The stats on Musashimaru always stun me. Only one MK (2-5 at Ms11) before his next one in his fourth basho as Yokozuna (2-2-11 kyujo in January 2000). Also, day 3 of that tournament was the first missed bout in his career.

Well, this explains the head-scratching "Sumo in Montreal" video; check the URL on that one.

Err ... are Montreal and Wakayama Sister-Cities?

I'm not saying I think he's beating or harassing recruits (I don't know what the "family" specifically alleged). If you compare this heya with, say, Shikihidebeya (where the philosophy seems to be "give street kids a haven in Sumo"), there weren't too many quick retirements in Shikihide (until the Scary Okamisan controversy). When Narutobeya had the hazing scandal in 2019, the aggressor was kicked out and not much else happened; the Anzai scandal also seemed to be a one-off (the other two rikishi who retired were both fighting long-term injuries). I know many members of this forum view that heya as a criminal enterprise, but at least we can compare their histories, since they opened at about the same time. What's disturbing to me is that only one of the retirees had a hair-cutting ceremony. I look forward to seeing the danpatsu-shiki articles in the Forum at the end of each basho; you get to honor many lunch-bucket guys who did their best and didn't make it to the paying ranks. Not to provide that event to your rikishi is, well, disturbing.

It looks suspicious. Nishiiwa branched out from Tagonoura in Jan 2018; apparently two deshi went with him. Of the 9 rikishi with intai since then, the career length is: 0-9 basho, 4; 10-19 basho, 2; 20-29 basho, 2; 30-39 basho, 1. For the remaining 7 active rikishi (all arriving in March), 2 joined in 2018, 2 in 2020, 1 in 2022 and 1 in 2024. Only 4 of the 16 Nishiiwa rikishi have reached Sandanme as of 11/2024, the highest rank is Sd55 for (intai) Tokinosato.