ryafuji

That’s the point - those who are borrowing those shares will be ejected if their owners decide to retire.

I'm going to be pessimistic and say upper makushita. With his long-term health issues, and competition at the top of makushita so strong, he may find promotion to juryo beyond him.

Tomokaze defeated a yokozuna having never previously faced a sanyaku opponent. That can't have happened too often.

You’re misquoting there. I don’t think Fukurou was praising strength to retire in time, just the strength to retire at all.

You have to physically get up on the dohyo to earn a fusen win, so it would be recorded as a loss for both. (I get that you're not being entirely serious, but for the record...)

1. Tomokaze KK 2. Hoshoryu KK 3. Goeido 10-5 4. Takayasu 9-6 5. Chiyosakae KK 6. Tanakayama MK 7. Meisei MK 8. Tsukahara KK 9. Takemasa MK 10. Wakayama KK 11. Masunoyama MK 12. Yoshoyama KK 13. Izumigawa MK 14. Fujinotani KK 15. Shimanoumi KK 16. Gagamaru MK 17. Kiribayama KK 18. Ichiyamamoto MK 19. Kizakiumi KK TB 17

The quality of English on Banzuke Topics at sumo.or.jp/en is sadly much poorer than it used to be. The entry for Ryuden has "Taking only 79 tournaments to reach the rank means tying the 10th rank in speed." Taking 79 tournaments to reach komusubi from career debut sounds like the tenth slowest ever, not tenth fastest, right?

Well I was wrong.... still think Asanoyama should have got it.

Yes, but we're talking about at the end of the day when there are no more incoming rikishi.

Is it that unexpected? It used to be very rare for a rikishi not to adopt a formal shikona upon promotion to juryo but it seems to me to becoming much more of a thing to keep your own surname. But I have no data to back it up.

You listed Abi twice - Shimanoumi was the the third winner of the Kanto-sho.

Still no official announcement from Hitenryu? I thought he was supposed to be a wakaimonogashira by now.

Kotokamatani is of course the son of ex-sekiwake Kotonowaka and is now adopting his father's shikona. I wonder how many father and son sekitori there have been. (Sadanoumi is another example right now.)

Channel 4 when they covered sumo in the 1980s used to say “by tradition all those with scores of 7-7 are matched against each other in playoffs.” You just assumed at the time that they knew what they were talking about. Now I know better. Nice idea though.

I was feeling very pleased with myself when Enho was 7-2 Thanks for the game!