messi19

Must be a bit frustrating for you Asashosakari to drop off the group of leaders by such a thin margin... Actually IIRC during my yusho run last basho several times did I just barely make it above the cut and pick up a victory. I guess some luck is always needed to take the yusho..

75 is what it had been up to this basho, right? Or were they changing the bit rate the last couple of basho too (without me noticing it) ?

Kaiguma, from the little I have my seen of my adoptee he *is* prone to henka because he goes all out at the tachi-ai. No back-pedalling, but forward moving sumo no matter what. It makes it very hard to avoid falling for a henka - even in makuuchi a rikishi like Chiyotaikai has virtually no ability to adapt to his opponent side-stepping. Even Yokozuna Hakuho fell for one last basho so I hope Masunoyama's opponents will take him straight on all the time even knowing that they may get blasted out of the ring in less than two seconds. (Neener, neener...)

Well, as for Masunoyama - his loss today came after he was at the receiving end of a henka by Mizuguchi, but mid-makushita is indeed a big step up on everything else he's had to deal with so far..I wonder how he compares in keiko to Takunishiki who seems to be back on track and looking good for KK. Right now Takunishiki is probably the strongest Chiganoura rikishi, but Masunoyama will get there in time. (I am not worthy...)

Impressive fact for today: Hakuho is now on a 27-bout winning streak at Natsu Basho. 28 counting the kettei-sen with Miyabiyama in 2006. His last loss at this basho came against the very same Miyabiyama on Day 5 in 2006. He's also chasing his third straight natsu yusho. His previous two have been arguably two of the most important he's had up to this point. 2006 was his very first makuuchi yusho while his zensho last year clinched yokozuna promotion.

Actually I have to disagree with that. Henka do frequently result in kimarite such as Uwatedashinage or Okuridashi and quite a few others. If I'm not mistaken Kaio had two tottari wins last year with both coming after he henka'ed Kotooshu. In fact any win by a given kimarite can be a result of a henka even though hikiotoshi and hatakikomi are indeed the most frequent kimarite resulting from a henka. I do wonder what's the percentage of uwatedashinage wins following a henka compared to the obvious hikiotoshi/hatakikomi though. Considering that there are a lot less uwatedashinage wins over the course of a honbasho the results may well be surprising.

The reason may be whatever, but the slow-motion replay shows Hakurozan's foot and Toyohibiki's hand touching off at the very, very same time. I must disagree. The replays I saw clearly showed Hakurozan out before any part of Toyohibiki touched the ground. That's right. Higginbotham: Try stopping the video at about 2.18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugAj0-EwZ-U I'm truly impressed with the gyoji here. Absolutely the right call made and it wasn't easy at all.

Interesting bout between Homasho and Iwakiyama. For a moment it looked like Iwakiyama had set up the easy okuridashi, however not only does Homasho recover but gain morozashi in the process. Will Kimurayama be the next one to make it to makuuchi? It's way too early to tell obviously, but he's looking in fine form just like last basho.

Any chance of them increasing the bitrate for makuuchi at least (cause that's when the link to the stream appears on the kyokai site)..68 kbit/s is... well...

Anybody know what happened to the Chiganoura blog? On Tochinoyama's blog there is a link leading to it, but it hasn't been working for several days now. I hope it still exists somewhere because even though I didn't understand anything, the hilarious pictures (especially of Masunoyama and Daiechizeno) alone made it worth visiting it. (Holiday feeling...)

Interestingly two of Shiratsuka's eight career losses came at the hands of Tamadaiki. The fact that Tamadaiki has proven capable of handling a rikishi quickly approaching the top of makushita indicates that he may not yet hit the wall this basho despite his run of 4-3 KK...

Hmm, I'd be interested in which rikishi you're thinking of...though if that rikishi - whoever it is - doesn't end up damaging Baruto's knee in the next couple of basho it wouldn't necessarily mean that you're wrong since a lot of things need to come together for such an unfortunate event to happen. Thinking along those lines.. the Kotoshogiku-Baruto matchup will be one to follow, but I'm probably just saying that with their last bout in mind when Kotoshogiku's gaburi style forced the crushing abisetaoshi and left Baruto with a major knee injury.

I'd like to see Hoshikaze make it, but despite his terrific nage ability and overall good variety in his sumo, there's the big question mark of whether he is physically strong enough for his sumo to work when he's in the juryo promotion zone or ranked just outside of it. In the last couple of basho he seems to have established himself in the first quarter of makushita so he should be capable of taking the next step. Daiyubu has so Hoshikaze can as well.

I guess Katayama despite being about two years younger than Kyokunankai can be considered more of a sektori veteran considering he has been a sekitori for almost four years now (23 basho as a sekitori overall). Kyokunankai has had 16 sekitori basho and unlike Katayama none in Makuuchi. Then again, Kyokunankai's hatsu dohyo came no less than 9 years ahead of Katayama's. Kyokunankai in that sense is much more of a veteran, but not as much of a sekitori veteran. Anyway, I know that the poll was made taking into account the age factor so there are no objections from my part. (I am not worthy...)

I don't know if it was "badly injured", but it was indeed hurt in a bout with Shirononami on Day 7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7SwXmxfCgk Anyway, a rikishi like Tochinoshin can overcome such an injury. His yotsu-sumo is so sound and his yorikiri's usually look so "clean" and convincing. I tend to agree with Kintamayama that he will eventually (probably sometime this year) become the better of the Georgians as far as banzuke ranking is concerned.