Dapeng

That special person barely escaped a certain death days ago and will return. Hope Asa will overcome yesterday's incident and show us a strong return too.

Well, Hakuho knew that Shodai is not an oil-saving lamp.

There was promotion after a makekoshi though.

In sumo, a rikishi's ranking reflects his strength and he fights those with similar strength. A rikishi is not supposed to fight those who are much weaker than him, vice-versa. However, as we already saw, the suspension (as punishment) demoted a strong and healthy rikishi to lower ranks to fight much weaker opponents, which is not fair for his opponents. My suggestion is to solve this dilemma. Anyway, I don't expect NSK will ever make changes according to my suggestion

Reduction of payment (e.g. 50%) is already used as punishment. A 100% reduction is just a more severe punishment. The match fixing or mukiryoku by the "suspended" rikishi can be easily prevented by making him withdrawing from the basho after he KKs.

Suspension itself is not a punishment, the resulting demotion is. I think a suspended rikishi should still attend a basho at his current rank but frozen from promotion and still liable to demotion. Also, he loses all his rank privileges. For example, a M1 rikishi is suspended for 3 bashos. Upon the decision of the suspension, he still competes at M1 but no promotion and no award even he KK and his record is considered as 8-7. If he MK, he is demoted accordingly. In addition, his rank privileges (payment and other treatments) are immediately demoted to that of the rank he is supposed to be at the end of his suspension (in this case the rank of MS).

https://archive.org/details/NHKSpecialHakuho14Years

I got the same problem when playing it on my laptop, but no problem when playing it on my Android cellphone.

From now on, the NSK should make every new oyakata to sign the same document, otherwise it's outrageous discrimination and disrespect to the GOAT of sumo.

With the current banzuke, Hakuho can easily win 14 or zensho. Both Haku and Teru have knee problems and Teru's won't last longer than Haku. If Haku determines to fight until his master's retirement, Teru may not be able to reach yusho number 10.

Hakuho has double insurances thus most unlikely to be infected.

Sure. I have the similar feeling that he is not quite confident with himself. We don't know how severe was his neck injury but it's a dangerous one. Believe he had MRI. Hope his decision to enter the basho was based on his doctor's advice, not on his own or his master's.

For Hakuho It's not too bad to rest and heal for two more months, probably also for Enho. For that big juryo boy, it's a setback. Anyway, since all the NSK have been completely vaccinated, they don't need to be as nervous as before they were vaccinated.

He should be allowed to enter the basho. He had been infected and vaccinated, thus most unlikely to be infected again.

We'll see if anyone else of Miyagino heya get infected. If more than one comes out infected, I'll seriously doubt the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing infection. Good news is that the Ichinojo is all by himself in his heya.