dada78641

Goeido in the commentary box: I still don't like how they shoved Mainoumi into a closet. I thought that was just temporary out of necessity last basho but it seems it's his permanent location now.

Yeah, like pro wrestling style. The lights suddenly go out, the commentators are shocked and confused and ask what's going on, then suddenly a spotlight shines on the west entrance and "seek and destroy" blasts out of the Kokugikan speakers as Abi begins making his way to the dohyo...with a steel chair in his hands.

Yeah, I wonder if this is the biggest promotion ever in Makuuchi, to go from M17e to M1e.

Really sad. It's also really sad to hear this happened as he was coaching children, which must have been a very traumatic experience for them. 38 is far too young. This video is a good example of just how massive and strong he was. (I reckon most people know him from that famous video where he gets knocked out cold by Kinjo [now Chiyodaigo], but this is a much better example of his sumo.)

Remembered I had written that script earlier, went and did some more work on it. Now it highlights (jun)yuushou, distinguishes between makuuchi and lower ranks, and works on Japanese. You need the Tampermonkey browser add-on to run this script, and it'll work automatically when you visit the page. Here's the script: https://gist.github.com/msikma/bcd6161221fef37a6d3b76e646d0fc76 Doesn't work on older basho, though, because it get confused when a wrestler doesn't do either 7 or 15 matches. I'll work on that later. And apologies to people who are colorblind, I'm sure there's a better way to style this. edit: also, old basho sometimes have a record with 'a' or 'd' in it. I assume 'd' is draw, but what's 'a'?

I can't really agree about the need for more strict rules governing yokozuna retirement. It's an honorary rank to begin with. In a sense you can say they've more or less ascended past the whole ranking system itself. They're the miracle workers of sumo, and you don't really need miracles to happen every day. Or expect them to. To me it's perfectly fine for Hakuho and Kakuryu to be very selective about whether they're fit to participate, so that when they do they we can be sure they're in decent enough shape to seriously contend for the yusho. Also, as part of the immense prestige and ceremonial importance of the yokozuna rank, their retirement should be as decent and honorable as possible too—it seems wrong to simply 'fire' one in disgrace based on not meeting a specific hard requirement. Yokozuna should retire when it's the "right time" for them to go.

Speaking of optimistic, I think worrying about overlapping with the Tokyo Olympics is optimistic too...

Hostess clubs aren't really that decadent, though. It's not like they're brothels. Someone sits next to you and pours you drinks and laughs at your stupid jokes. It's really not that uncommon for guys to go there with friends even if some of them have a wife or girlfriend. Obviously, I don't know his wife and, who knows, maybe she does want to divorce him over something like that, but it's not quite as big a taboo as it might seem.

Well, I'm not trying to say it's impossible, just that it's highly improbable. As I understand it, the Taganoura pic started circulating around social media and it might be impossible to determine who originally took the photo now. Even if you do, you have to be certain the transfer is done correctly and that the pic wasn't altered in some way even accidentally. You have to burden a random member of the public who's not on your payroll with cooperating with an investigation. It's just a big bag of worms for something that's only an internal matter and has no legal implications, so I don't blame them for not pursuing it. Besides, it doesn't really matter, since if it wasn't during the basho he would certainly have said so. There's no way he'd not remember whether he violated curfew or not even if he blacked out. He'd remember having gone out the morning after, or he'd have a gap in his memory. So I think they probably assumed it did happen either during the basho or during the pre-basho quarantine when they gave his punishment.

That's not the case unfortunately. Metadata is very easily lost. For example, if you send an image via LINE, that's completely stripped of metadata. Or if you post it to Twitter, same story, even if you download the "original" quality image. Same for images sent through Discord and Facebook. The only site I know of that takes care to maintain the metadata is Flickr, since it's built for photographers. Also, in cases like this photos are usually cropped or edited to blur out other people's faces and that almost always strips the metadata too unless you do it in a program like Photoshop and take special care to maintain it (you can unknowingly strip the metadata depending on how you save your file). edit, also: Here I was, making a plea for leniency for Abi on the basis of hypocrisy, and then he goes and does me dirty like that lol

Sad news about Abi offering an informal resignation. Obviously, what he did was dreadful and put not only his fellow wrestlers and the audience at risk, but the sumo tournament itself as well. No sporting event is guaranteed in times of coronavirus, let alone with audience, and if wrestlers or officials can't even follow their own rules it's entirely possible that the next one won't be allowed to happen. So it's understandable. I'm still not 100% sure if the main driving force behind his retirement is the NSK itself or Shikoroyama, and whether, if it's the latter, he would've definitely been forced out as well had it just been up to just the NSK. I think it's fair to say most people who posted in this topic prior to the retirement offer expected lighter punishment. I was hoping for him to be able to stay in sumo even though his actions were extremely stupid. Partly because of Tagonoura doing the same thing and getting off on a technicality. (You're never going to convince me that he "doesn't remember" whether it happened during the basho or not. Even if you drink yourself into a complete blackout, you'll understand you went out the morning after. It did happen during the basho and he's just afraid to say it.) But also partly because the guidelines around coronavirus don't feel strict enough to me in general, with sustained active infections higher than first peak in April, new cases going up every day, and yet most of daily life goes on unimpeded. Schools and offices are full again, kids are playing sports, masks not required. I understand that sumo wrestlers are held to a higher standard because they're athletes and they're particularly vulnerable to the disease, and the rules were very clear, but still it somehow feels a little lopsided for Abi to have to resign for something that tons of people do every day who then go on to work the next day without a care in the world. That said, I don't really disagree with the decision either. I'm sure we'll see Abi either joining MMA or pro wrestling soon. He'd make a great heel.

Kinshicho is like my second home, I've spent about a year and a half there. It's right next to Ryogoku, the area where the Kokugikan and many sumo stables are located. You can regularly see wrestlers on the street there. It doesn't have a great reputation, but a place like that grows on you after a while. Wish we had that Instagram story, I'm curious if I could recognize the place (probably not, there are about a million), although I only go to hostess clubs when my friends drag me there.

Terunofuji just after winning his match: Being awarded the cup: And, finally, Terunofuji thinking "Where the hell do they expect me to put this thing? The garage?"

Peach fuzz beard Terunofuji

*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yup, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.