Churaumi

I think this is probably the biggest reason Hakuho would leave sumo. He has a habit of annoying the leadership and I doubt that's going to stop. I don't see him having Takanohana levels of friction with the Kyokai, but he will still occasionally be the sandpaper in the Kyokai's mawashi, and it will get old enough for him to leave.

He could still be the next yokozuna...no earlier than July now. Ball's in your dohyo, Shodai!

Mt Fuji said in his video something about the shimpan meeting to change the rules regarding this, has anyone else heard anything about that? Hopefully that'll be the last time we see an injured rikishi flopping around the dohyo while no one does anything to help him. I doubt it, but I can hope.

8-0 is a lot harder to pull off than 0-8....even I could go 0-8 (if I didn't have tattoos).

I don't know what it says about me that I find the idea of a generic crowd-watching thread way more comfortable than one dedicated to a particular person.

I mean, I'll pay to watch naked fat men slap each other and wrestle around. I'll even pay to watch sumo, too.

More than the 20 minute broadcast NHK World puts out. That's all we get where I live without resorting to VPN trickery. Cable and satellite services here don't carry NHK-G or any other flavor of Japanese TV other than NHK World. Just put it on YouTube and monetize it somehow. YT has a paid tier. I don't know how all that works behind the scenes, but there's an opportunity for NHK and/or the NSK to make money off me...somehow. There was a service a few years ago that sold streaming tickets to the entire basho or individual days. It was expensive but was great...it kept the streams as videos for some time so we could watch it at a normal hour for our side of the planet. It wasn't through NHK, though. I think the NSK arranged the contract. I know Abema is basically the same thing but it's not available here (officially).

Thanks for the info on how this works. I'm not a YouTuber, so I'm not up on the mechanics of these things. But, surely NHK receives some kind of notice when this happens? If they do, hopefully they realize the market is there for more coverage overseas. Or, could someone ask the guy in the red jacket to take it off? I saw rumors on Twitter that's what's doing it.

Hopefully the Kyokai gets the message that if NHK has to be so busy shutting down foreign people's YT videos it means there is demand for access outside Japan and they expand access. I know they won't but a boy can dream...

It's not too late for Midorifuji to top out at double-digit maegashira, just sayin'...

I don't know about the car situation, but I read it to mean he didn't want to go to Ryogoku because there are a lot of people there and he didn't want to expose himself to strange people and a place he rarely goes to. It defeats the purpose of quarantine and social distance to go places you can't control.

The Kyokai seems to be looking at the situation stable by stable, rather than across the board. Hopefully as rikishi pop positive they just put individual stables kyujo rather than the whole sport.

I doubt the YDC will say anything about this, at least nothing negative. 'Rona is too touchy a topic for them to criticize a sick rikishi. There's a huge difference between sitting out to sit out and sitting out to not spread COVID. His contact trace could be interesting, though. Hopefully he hasn't been by the stable lately.

One each then, sadly. Hopefully it's just crap lighting. I remember watching him take tickets at the gates of the Kokugikan, he was the only oyakata there that seemed to enjoy being there and bantering with the fans.

I finally beat the search function by yorikiri. It was during a basho in 2017, he pulled out due to heart arrhythmia. So...my bad. Maybe he's having heart issues? Did his brothers die of heart trouble or cancer? I already had my bout with the search function today.