fwuzzle23

In the new arena. The Asian Games don't start until mid-September so there wouldn't be any conflict with the Nagoya Basho.

Ultimately I don't think it's really duty as much as it is pragmatism. Miyagino is currently judged unfit to run a heya, so his personnel need to be moved elsewhere. The Kyokai insisted that Miyagino-beya be moved as a unit and not split them between multiple heya as was originally rumored, since they seem to want to preserve the possibility for Miyagino-beya to reform. Isegahama-ichimon has only 5 other stables, so there already aren't a lot of options to do that, even just on a logistical level (literally not having room for 10-15 extra rikishi), and ichimon business is generally handled in-house so no chance of them asking an out-of-ichimon heya to help. SOMEONE in the ichimon has to accept them, and Isegahama seems to just be the least-bad option that fulfills the requirements. They have the room, they'd still have the balance of power against Miyagino rikishi and it's led by a former yokozuna who still seems to have a ton of influence and will be able to keep Hakuho in check. In any case, I think everyone involved is going into this aware that this is a temporary arrangement. Either Miyagino will get himself straightened out and re-earn his heya-ownership rights so he can re-establish Miyagino-beya, or he ragequits a la Takanohana and someone else, whether Magaki or another oyakata, can move them out to a seperate stable under their own name. Frankly I'd be surprised if this goes beyond Isegahama's retirement since I have my doubts of ex-Homarefuji or whoever being able to handle it.

It was probably "safe" to say that when they didn't demand his resignation over this at the same time as they (would have) demanded Hokuseiho's resignation. But good luck convincing some of the conspiracy theorists, he could be fully independent again and they'll still insist that the NSK's busy cooking up another scheme to get rid of him, because the NSK are moustache-twirling villains that are completely unable to just fire someone or tell them to quit.

I guess you could view it as collective punishment in the sense that none of them reported what Hokuseiho was doing either, it was a family member of one of the victims that tipped off the NSK that anything was happening. If nothing else, maybe they need to be reminded that they are expected to report things like that. More likely, though, it's just damage control: limiting their ability to make the situation worse by saying or doing the wrong thing, and things like the senshuraku party would be ripe opportunities for outsiders to bait them into doing exactly that. For what it's worth, Tamagaki himself doesn't seem to see them as potential troublemakers (even says he feels sorry for them), but this is a heya-wide issue and any more misbehavior will reflect badly on Miyagino, so he wants them toeing the line.

I'm fairly sure that whatever is on the printed version of the banzuke isn't considered binding for the duration of the basho. We've seen enough examples of current/former sekitori retiring just after banzuke release, and having the retirement properly acknowledged by the NSK, being counted as retired instead of kyujo; or other changes of status happening pre-basho or even during basho. In any case, the NSK site already has the page for Otowayama-stable up with Hagane listed as its one active rikishi (since the other transferree is off-banzuke), so that's going to be how they handle things for January. My assumption is that ex-Kakuryu will still be listed as Kakuryu-oyakata on the printed banzuke because that's how things were when this banzuke was written out weeks ago, but he'll be acknowleged as Otowayama-oyakata regardless.

As far as I'm aware, any oyakata can be a stablemaster. The lowest tier ones can only qualify for a kabu takeover if it's for the purpose of taking over a heya to save it from closure. The others can just acquire a kabu normally, and of course only the ones in the highest tier can branch out and start a new stable.

Eh, a 4-11 at J9 is one win below safety by the numbers, as is a 5-10 at J11, I don't know if I'd call either slam-dunk necessarily. The three that actually got demoted were multiple wins under safety. I can buy that the shimpans didn't feel like either case necessarily demanded a demotion, especially when those that would be coming up in their place didn't really enough to demand a promotion themselves.

He had surgery after the Nagoya basho, his kyujo in Aki was because he was trying to rehab in time and realized at the last minute he wasn't in any condition to come back. He's recovered enough that he was able to participate in the recent tour and lend his chest to other sekitori, but he apparently hasn't ruled out sitting out Kyushu as well if he's not fully recovered.

Asanoyama Hiroki is his full shikona as of this banzuke. Only the given name changed, his surname is still Asanoyama. No idea whether he changes back to Hideki, because Hideki was chosen to honor his deceased high school coach, and it could be he feels like he dishonored the name by getting involved in the scandal.

I went and looked at his Day 15 match and his hair is pulled tight to his head in the back as per usual for regular chonmage (see the attached image). With that said, he's probably not far off from having the right length for the oicho, he's had the regular chonmage since at least Kyushu last year and I can't imagine it takes as long for mage->oicho as it does for zambara->mage (roughly a year)

Ah, my mistake then. Still, for the sake of everyone running GTB I hope we don't have to go the manual route again in the future. Pain for both the people entering and the people running the show. Either by the DB server having more reliability now that Doitsuyama's implemented a fix to mitigate the bot issue, or having alternate means of submitting entries like some have mentioned.

As far as I'm aware, the entry list only displays the people who used the actual entry form through the website. I have no idea if it will eventually have the people who had to email theirs, but those have to be entered into the system manually, which seems like a difficult process from how much Moti seems to be dreading having to do that...

Got mine in. My apologies to Moti if it isn't in a good format....and also for contributing to the pile of entries he's going to have to do by hand... I'll post here just in case as well:

I can't speak for anyone else, but I was pretty sure Endo won while watching in real-time, before I saw any replay. Not every somewhat-close result needs a monoii, if that was the standard then the top division would take another hour.

I believe so, at the very least it's too late to have made an extra promotion from juryo to take his spot, so it's just a matter of whether you keep Hakuho or blank out his spot, and the latter seems like a punitive option to me so he'll probably still be there.