Morty

That was unquestionably not a reddit thread. That was a 4Chan thread. Never go to 4Chan. Never.

I totally agree. This forum is one of the best and most respectful places on the whole internet. Nobody goes ad hominem, there is no flaming, everyone treats each other well. Well done to all the forum members for being a thoroughly decent bunch of human beings - kudos!

The replay shows clearly that Inosuke got his foot underneath Shodai's as Shodai was being pushed out, causing Inosuke's sandal to come off. So instead of getting his foot up against the tawara it ended up on a moving object. Even if he was probably likely to have lost anyway, Shodai was totally right to be annoyed. Has there ever been an instance where a bout was called a torinaoshi because of gyoji interference?

Best single day of day of sumo in a fair while - lots of long bouts, lots of bouts on the belt, Kotonowaka's pushout of Yutakayama, Akiseyama's pushout of Tochinoshin (!), Takarafuji lifting Ichinojo off the ground (!!)(even momentarily) 90 seconds into their bout, an Utchari(!!!), Endo giving Mitakeumi a Yotsu lesson, then finally that crazy bout between Shodai and Terunofuji. Who says you need the Yokozuna to show up for it to be entertaining?

Awesome finish to the Kotonowaka / Yutakayama match. The former casually dodges the latter's attempted slap then casually one arm pushes him off the dohyo. Fabulous match.

I am now pretty convinced that Mitakeumi will KK this basho, while Akiseyama will MK. Awesome day of sumo today - some great bouts, my favourite being Ichinojo/Midorifuji, with all the little technical stuff they did trying to get the grip they wanted.

Lots of Rikishi have struggled over the years in the Basho directly after receiving some "tough love" from Hak during keiko.

His sumo style means there is just a whisker between "mostly unbeatable" and "pretty easy to beat" if he is just a little bit off. There is no real margin for error. Usually the first push shoves his aite upright and off balance and the second one shoves them backwards. That first shove isn't working and Plan B (the sideways shove) is off too. It could just be he's out of form and his timing is off?

Surely at this point we need to acknowledge that Akiseyama's body has been possessed by an ancient and powerful warrior spirit who as come back from the grave for one final shot at glory? Coz I can't work out how else this has happened. He looks like he was just wandering past the KK with a shopping trolley full of cardboard and empty aluminum cans and thought "that looks fun, I'll nip in and give it a go" but he is fighting like Raiden. I doubt he is going to yusho, but I would love it if he did.

I've watched it every day for the past four days... He is running the digest as a live stream on Youtube as a workaround

Might just be like me, can't watch it live on weekdays because I'm in the same time zone and working, so avoid the results until I can watch one of the digests, then comment. As I am doing now And it was a great day of sumo, go Akiseyama

It was the second headbutt of four that did it, and he then kept fighting for about another ten seconds. Hokutofuji is fractionally less skilled than the other top rikishi but he has better wind and a better chin which keeps him in the hunt. And endless fighting spirit. Top Man

I'm tipping Akiseyama as this basho's bottom of the banzuke yusho smoky.

I don't think he will finish the year on the banzuke, and I don't think he will get back to makuuchi. Probable drop to makushita (Ms2) then intai

His best is very hard to beat but he doesn't do it often enough. So he remains the perennial sekiwake with occasional drops into the upper joi