Adil

I haven't been following sumo as closely as I used to because I am busy with other stuff. I just got a message from a Japanese friend telling me that Ichinojo has retired, and my jaw dropped to the floor, like many others. It was great watching him for a while, although he was so frustrating at times because I always got the feeling that he could have done so much more. In many of his matches, he was so listless and lethargic. I understand that there could be many reasons for that (injuries etc.). In any case, I made a prediction 5 years ago saying that he won't go too far. Many people were still holding on to hopes of him becoming the next dominant yokozuna (reasonable expectation, considering his incredible start), and for a while, I had hopes too. However, I decided to jump off the bandwagon in January 2018. Yes, he did stay in sanyaku during 2018 after the hatsu basho, but that was the pinnacle of his career. After that, he only had the odd basho in sanyaku here and there in the last 4 years of his career (4 times in total). Yes, he did win a basho during that time, but so did Tokushoryu, Wakatakakage, Daieisho and many others. There is a lot of talk about the rumors regarding him being unhappy, having a drinking problem, the oyakata owing him money etc. Quite frankly, is he the only rikishi with problems? I find that hard to believe. Being an outsider, I would have no way of knowing the extent of his outside-the-dohyo problems, but I don't think they are any more severe than what the other rikishi go through. In any case, I don't think he would have let these problems force him out of sumo if he was dominant on the dohyo and winning several basho a year. He was a good rikishi who had an above average career, whose main strength was his incredible size, power and speed (yes, for a guy that size, he sure could move) with which he was able to rise to makuuchi, but he was not good enough to rise beyond that. Let's not forget, to get to the top in any field, one doesn't just need talent or aptitude; one also needs discipline, drive, hunger, the will to survive, the ability to overcome all challenges etc. Was he forced to retire because of a new transgression that was more serious than what he had done before? Maybe yes, maybe not. There is no way of knowing that at this moment. Regardless, even if he had stayed on, there wasn't a high probability that his career trajectory would have been any different from what it has been. For those of you who are interested, here is my post from January 2018 about what I expected Ichinojo's future to be:

It seems like the a**-whooping he got from Shoma has taught him a lot of humility.

属 meaning "affiliation" or "belonging" (among other things), I would think the most logical translation for 転属 would be "change in affiliation", just like 転職 (job change).

This is the context: He was breaking down Teru's bout with Abi, and he spoke about how Teru used his legs (and then one leg only) at the tawara to avoid being pushed out. He then remarked that this is something that we don't get to see from Japanese rikishi these days, and he followed that by saying that Teru's style is the most "Japanese" among the Mongolian yokozuna.

Interesting comment from Wakanohana: He said that even though there have been some Mongolian yokozuna recently, Terunofuji is the one who does the most "Japanese" style sumo among them.

I, for one, was not surprised by Aoiyama's behavior. He never shows any kind of respect/concern for the defeated opponent. Every time he pushes someone out and they take a painful/dangerous fall, Aoiyama always instantly wheels away. With other rikishi, you will usually see a helping hand, a hand gesture or simply a few second wait to see that the defeated opponent is OK and is getting up on their own.

Is there a pic of this banzuke online? I see it mentioned on https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/両國梶之助_(初代), but I can't seem to find a pic of it. The oldest one I can find online is from 1788.

Ah yes, the good old 角界... Google Translate still translates it as "horny world". There was a lot of snickering on the forum a few years ago when someone used Google Translate to read a Japanese article on sumo and found them talking about the horny world instead. On the topic of GT butchering sumo related terms, I think "diarrhea in the sky" takes the cake. "geri" can mean 'kick' (蹴り) or 'diarrhea' (下痢). Since the original Japanese had it in hiragana, GT didn't have the kanji to help it determine the correct meaning, and hence diarrhea instead of kick.

Is Wakanosato the east side shimpan today? One of the things that I always find interesting is how the rikishi greet the oyakata before stepping onto the dohyo and the oyakata acknowledges their greeting with a nod. Today, Wakanosato didn't acknowledge a single greeting. I think Terunofuji didn't greet him. Teru just adjusted his kesho-mawashi and stepped onto the dohyo. Urakaze on the west side acknowledged the greetings as usual. Maybe it is a trivial thing. It's just that I have never seen this before.

Just watched today's matches. Terunofuji's kainahineri reminded me of the match between Asashoryu and Kotooshu (day 13, 2010 January basho). Asashoryu pulled a brilliant kainahineri to win the match. Sadly, that turned out to be his last tournament. He only had two more matches after that (against Harumafuji & Hakuho) before his retirement.

I'm going by memory here, so I hope one of you folks who remembers this better than me can throw some light on this: Up until a few years ago, in situations like this, it was a judgement call for the shimpan about whether the hair pull was intentional, or whether it was a case of the fingers getting stuck in the mage unintentionally. However, this was changed a few years ago and it was decided that in either case (intentional mage pull or fingers getting stuck in the mage unintentionally), a hansoku would be called. This was done to make the decision-making more objective (presumably). Does anybody remember this?

Is this what you had in mind (nodowa + shove backwards)? I remember calling it a choke-slam-otoshi when it happened. Harumafuji also gave Kisenosato a choke-slam-otoshi once, and that one looked even more devastating than this one.

The first time I watched the regulation match between Takakeisho and Terunofuji, I thought Terunofuji jumped onto Takakeisho to make a point, but watching the replay, I tend to think the jump may have been to ensure his knee doesn't hit the dohyo first. By the way, is it my imagination, or did Terunofuji look like he was ready to burst into tears at any moment during the interview?

I don't understand this: Nishikido has had trouble saying anything coherently when explaining monoii decisions for years now. Why do they keep subjecting him to this? Oh, I see there was a second monoii. At least he got the second one out of the way with minimum fuss.

Even more than Shoudai, my hat is off to Moti zeki. Well, it was already off because of your knowledge and experience, but this time, I am throwing it out the window altogether. You kept calling him the next/future ozeki from the beginning (Shoudai, not the hat), even though at that time, another rising star looked to be more exciting (Mitakeumi). For a while, it looked like Shoudai might not reach the top with some so-so results, but here we are. Three cheers for Moti!