Benevolance

Then Shodai is walking the path of greatness! And, uh, maybe playing golf this basho? Whatever sport it is, it's not sumo at any rate.

I know the sanyaku looks bad, but if we pretend that they're tennis scores the whole scenario changes! At 6-3, Wakatakakage won his first set! Good work Wakatakakage!

I'm starting to think that maaaaybe this one isn't going to be a Shodai yusho.

Shodai does sometimes seem reluctant to give that extra shove.

In my half asleep, semi-inebriated haze at 1:30am, I thought Shodai looked pretty convincing in his win.

Shodai ain't no quitter! He'll EARN those losses, because he's got Ozeki Pride (TM).

Heads up, the NSK leaked the results early and Shodai wins the yusho. The puzzling part is how he stills ends up kadoban.

Okay, Asanoyama - he's sitting at Ms15e. This bizzaro banzuke (bizzban? bizzuke? ) withstanding, does he have mathematical odds of making juryo from this tournament's results?

Enough that they sought legal counsel.

Aw, man. We'd better hide this news before Bettega shows up. We'll say that Kaisei is, uh, napping! Yeah. He's just napping.

Just to clarify, since Asanoyama went 7-0 in Sandanme, he gets automatic promotion to makushita. If he wins the Makushita yusho next time, the auto-promote would bring him to...upper makushita? I forget how it's usually handled.

Oh, no! I just had a terrible thought! What if that zabuton bonk undoes the Hakuho bonk and resets Shodai B back into Shodai A? It would mean the announcers were right all along!?!?

Shodai! Okay, I gotta know now. When Hakuho had his 'talk' with Shodai, what size of empty bottle did he use? This could open up a whole new field of sports psychology in sumo.

SPECIAL NOTICE FROM THE KYOKAI: ALL BASELESS YOKOZUNA SPECULATION IS TO BE RESTRICTION TO INTERBASHO BOREDOM TIME AND STOP HAVING OF THE THROWING OF THE ZABUTON.

I'm rooting for Takakeisho, because we need some wild yokozuna promotion speculation between basho.

Or maybe the mawashi was too tight?

Those announcers can stuff it. I always throw whatever I'm sitting on at the TV for a kinboshi.

At a quick glance, Shodai's head to head against the sanyaku is about even for wins/losses. His sumo is lackluster, but he could be a lot worse. When Goeidou was doing kadoban whack-a-mole, he was doing it in a top division saturated with talent and his frequent flirtation with demotion was a side note. Shodai has the misfortune of performing sumo with relatively similar results whilst standing on a very empty stage. For myself, after a decade of watching some very dominant sumo, it's a bit hard to get used to watching ordinary results.

Rather than watching Teru & Ichi stand unmoving at the center of the dohyo for 8 minutes, maybe they could set up, like, a 4 minute tea ceremony and then they settle the match with some jan-ken-pon.

The NSK always seems more willing to under-promote than over-promote.

As Akinomaki reported Wakatakakage got a new shimekomi. But it was IN A BOX. No colour mentioned AT ALL! This is clearly the BIGGEST SCANDAL to hit us in these dark days of conformity of the neo-Magaki era. I bet it'll be blue.

At this time, I'd like to reflect on Shohozan's greatest moment: face palming Goeidou off the dohyo on day 5 of Nagoya in 2013. The match isn't the most incredible, but the Asahi shimbun got the most amazingly timed photo, which ended up being my desktop image for years. In the after interview, when asked about his attack, his response was something like, "His [Goeidou's] face was right there and I felt I needed to hit it."

Though I don't really have plans to travel yet, I keep an eye on the exchange rate and usually buy some yen when my dollar is higher "for eventually". I've heard from various other sources that the Japan borders might open up more come autumn. But as someone who works in risk management and follows pandemic data more than is probably healthy, I think I'm still two or three years away from flying to other places.

Champagne probably works better in therapy.

Hey, I think I figured a work around! Isn't Asa still assistant coaching at Isegahama beya with Terunofuji?