Octofuji

For the first 14 days of this basho he was sole leader of this chart with 3 yusho, maybe an all-time (low) record.

Takayasu sadness aside, it was a great day of sumo. Nice to see another kirikaeshi from Aonishiki, it's now his joint fourth most common kimarite (admittedly still a small sample).

Quote from Takayasu: I'd be lying if I said I had no regrets

Looking back at his bouts, he's looked out of control when falling/trying to get up since Day 2. (Day 1 against Nishikigi he won without having to exert himself). So possibly concussed even before entering.

I thought it was pretty much every time he fell over this basho (win or lose)? Probably my memory though...

Endo is taking so long to get up after falling. Similar to Ikioi when he had cellulitis but he was visibly in a lot of pain. Endo just looks shell-shocked, it's really strange.

There was a funny moment in the Kusano v Tsurugisho bout in juryo. Tsurugisho gave up at the edge but either out of kindness or misjudgement, Kusano stopped his bumpety-bump at the exact same time, leaving the big man standing there like a lemon inside the doyho. He had no option but to smoothly take one more step back and surrender the bout for the second time.

Takayasu! I haven't yelled so much since he lost to Wakatakakage. I'd forgotten how much I want him to win the yusho. I know he's unlikely to actually do it, and it doesn't mean much historically etc... but it would be such a lovely ending.

Interesting, and makes sense given he has a reputation for losing to opponents he should really beat. So if he stays true to form he should still get his Yokozuna kachikoshi after all. Here's hoping! Days 9-15 losses Days 10-15 losses

I think you've answered your own question ;)

In my early days of following sumo I was mystified by a tweet from Herouth saying that Hakuho dipped his supporters in tea. I'd never heard that term for bandage before, and the only way I could interpret it was that he somehow had little biscuit models of his fans and dunked them in his tea!

I remember with fondness Takakeisho trying an uwatenage on Terunofuji :) He's got a great tachiai like his shisho (and others from the same stable like Myogiryu and Sadanoumi), if he could add some belt skills then he could be a san'yaku regular rather than plateauing in the joi like Onosho. It's unlikely he'll be able to beat the likes of Hoshoryu on the mawashi, but it could really help him if he ends up in a clinch with another oshi wrestler. A lot of his losses seem to be when attacking at the edge, because he's so reluctant to get any sort of grip. (I'm not sure it can be just down to his height either since the shorter rikishi are often good on the belt)

Is he too old to change his spots then? We've seen some surprising belt performances from Tamawashi and even Ichiyamamoto lately, but I guess that facing the top rankers is a bit different.

Thanks, I worded that badly. What I was trying to say is for 33+ Ozeki runs starting from outside san'yaku, I had thought most of them would be denied. But Spiffy's explanation makes sense, the ones who did get promoted made themselves hard to ignore. Looking at all M1-M4s who got 33+ wins, 7 out of 12 became Ozeki. Starting from san'yaku, it's almost guaranteed (42 out of 46, the exceptions being Miyabiyama (X2), Baruto and Takakeisho.

Yes saying "he also loves children" does seem a bit desperate.

No I think it was to the body. I was quite shocked at the time being new to sumo, because it seemed so humiliating.

6 of the 40 got 33 wins or more in those three bashos. The exceptions who didn't get promoted were Takanosato (13 11 9) and Kotomitsuki (13 9 12). That's a higher hit rate than I was expecting, I had thought that Ozeki runs starting from outside san'yaku were the exception.

I remember watching Hakuho giving kawaigari to Takakeisho and kicking him (fairly gently) when he was down. More in the order of humiliating him rather than anything that would by itself injure him. So IF it was e.g. a prod to the cheek then it doesn't seem qualitatively different to what's been videoed and shared publicly fairly recently. The thing that is most depressing to me (and where the similarity with Hokuseiho lies) is the long-term pattern of misbehaviour and the five unhappy tsukebito.

Some of you might be interested in this interactive graph showing Kimarite trends over the years. https://sumo.stuartmcgill.org/ The data is from @thatsumoguy's https://www.sumo-api.com/ and I'll refresh after each basho. It just about works on a mobile but really the graphs are best viewed on a bigger screen. If you find any bugs please let me know - I'm sure there will be some :)

Thank you very much for the feedback! Grouping by year should be fairly easy to do. Maybe that should be the default option if the period selected is more than e.g. 10 years. With the curve it's a little tricky. The idea for this tool was to provide something impressionistic, to give an idea of trends over time. It doesn't allow you to drill down into the data like e.g. Yubinhaad's posts. So definitely, reducing variability feels like the right thing to do. But at the same time, it feels odd for the curve not to pass through the actual data points... I think though that the "grouping by year" idea will help with this. The other thing it really needs is URL query params, to allow external links to a selection of criteria (similar to Sumo DB queries). Again that shouldn't be too hard. I'll post back in here when these are done.

The committee did take those bouts into consideration, as the link from the Hoshoryu promotion thread says: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20250127/k10014705161000.html

Until today I'd have agreed with the others who said it's better not to promote Hoshoryu even with a 12-3 yusho. But I've been swayed by the fantastic quality of today's bouts. That's got to be Yokozuna-level sumo. I've sometimes thought of him unfavourably compared with Kirishima and even Wakatakakage, but it's easy to forget that he's still just 25 (and the youngest Yokozuna since Hakuho) and hopefully not even reached his peak yet.

They're rare but not ultra rare (about 5 a year across all divisions). Only one in Makuuchi in the last five years though (Tobizaru in Aki 2024). The first bout between them was great fun to watch. It looked to me like Tsushimanada won by pushing on the kneecap of his opponent whilst almost horizontal himself, causing Asakoki's legs to twist round and collapse. No wonder they called a redo!

Yeah that's how I read it - I don't think it was premeditated. Endo did the same move a few days ago in a bout that should have been called a matta. Speaking of Endo, Atamifuji is surely injured to go out so easily.

Kinbozan doesn't seem that unlikely to me on current form, depending on how he copes mentally with the new situation. I'd love to see a ridiculous Kirishima 12-3 yusho, but I think it could be 13-2 to Kinbozan. Yusho talk aside, there were so many fantastic bouts today!