Finngall

Sign me up.

Due to court cases in which the old rules were deemed to be in violation of US labor laws, the eligibility rules for college athletes in all sports have loosened up considerably in recent years--players are much freer to transfer between schools without penalty, and are more able to make money (sometimes millions) off their name, image and likeness (the more common usage of NIL--the WWE "Next In Line" usage is a play on this). If Hanada chooses to shift into pro wrestling as a career, one could hardly do better than the WWE Performance Center as a training ground--and even if he doesn't make the grade in the WWE, if he shows enough potential he could take that experience back to Japan.

Did you hear about the porno murder mystery? Everybody did it.

I'll chuck in some salt and join the fray (h/t Fujisan) for whichever of these games gets going.

Breaking out my dartboard again to make my picks If you'll have me.

Sorry, I was on vacation for a week. Submitted.

I'm in as a player. Thanks.

Not confident in my prediction prowess here, but if it happens, I'll give it a go.

Whew...first time not going home economy class in one of these things. Thanks to all of the refojis for their work.

This was my Round 1 lineup. Round 3 lineup is: Spain (R) France Switzerland Ghana Croatia Iran Belgium Australia (C) Poland Wales Qatar

I'll give it another go.

It's their only chance To get on television; Give them their moment.

Nothing against Rammstein--I like them. But for a lot of what they've done, Laibach did it first and/or better.

And not his first knee injury—he blew out a knee in 2012 whilst in Sandamne and missed the next couple of basho.

Aw, heck, I'll give it another shot.

Was this what you were looking for?

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

That was a heroic effort.

Greetings, The premiere of this year’s (US) revival of The Weakest Link featured as one of its contestants a “former amateur sumo wrestler” named Angel with a familiar face...it’s been a few years since he’s been here, but wasn’t that our @Kasutera?

Indeed, I repeatedly point out to my non-wrestling-fan friends that regardless of what they think of it and in spite of its scripted nature, it's still real people doing some pretty crazy s*** in the ring, some of it highly athletic, for the sake of entertaining a crowd.

Greetings. I found myself going down a rabbit hole and am looking for help to satisfy my curiosity. Last night I had NHK World on in the background and what happened to be on was Part Two of a feature on "Future Princes of Dance", spotlighting top members of the most recent graduating class of one of Russia's premier ballet academies. One of these was Aaron Osawa-Horowitz (the only Japan connection among the dancers), who eventually was hired by the prestigious Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg. I did a little bit of Google searching on him, which probably wouldn't have lasted very long except that I stumbled upon a site for his mother Chikako Osawa-Horowitz (大澤史來), who is a photojournalist in London. Here she mentions that both her father and uncle were "professional" rikishi, with her uncle being a "Champion" and her father having received the Order of the Sacred Treasure from Emperor Hirohito. As "Champion" could mean as little as a Jonokuchi yusho, that's not necessarily meaningful, but I assume that getting a medal, however minor, means that the father achieved something of note in the sport. But the queries on sumodb don't appear to allow a search on real names, and my Google searches haven't been fruitful. May I enlist the assistance of the community? Thank you very much.

You better you bet.

Daniel Austin (aka Don Roid) isn't a member here AFAIK, but he's an occasional contributor over on Sumotalk and periodically features sumo on his podcast, where he's interviewed Mike and others of the ST crew along with Moti, Osunaarashi, Byamba, and others.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but: I need England to lose in 90 minutes and break his chain right there to take it to PKs. I can't score any more goals beyond the 3 slot because either a) Switzerland wins or draws and breaks my chain in the 4 slot or b) Switzerland loses, breaking my chain at #5 regardless of the ENG-COL result due to it being my (R) team. If his chain doesn't break at 3, I give up a goal at slot 4 if Switzerland wins, at slot 6 if Sweden wins, or in both slots in case of a draw.