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I had actually forgotten about this case entirely, but I happened to see Takanofuji's face on the news for the retirement announcement. I'm surprised it went on for so long. You know, in principle, if someone has a legal case and they want to pursue it through the court system: fine. That's what the courts are for, right? But... this was just doomed to fail even if he won in court. You can't expect a rikishi to have a comfortable career when the entire sumo world and even its fanbase are against you. They'd have found ways to punish him for the slightest, tiniest infractions for the rest of his time in sumo. All this was just a waste of time and money. He should've just gone out gracefully as a gift to his brother.

Tomokaze's tears. A beautiful moment. 嘉風先輩、お疲れさまでした。

Sumo royalty in the kokugikan today. Also since Kakuryu got defeated by a rank-and-filer again, the zabuton were sent flying...

Just a pic of the zabuton flying after Asanoyama got his first kinboshi:

I was a little shocked to see him retiring. I mean, sure I haven't seen him fight for a while but I assumed he was injured or somewhere in lower juryo temporarily. It's always weird when a wrestler who's been a makunouchi mainstay for years decides to quit. Fortunately, the sumo circle of life continues as always. (Shin juryo Kaishou/魁勝.) :)

Enho's little mini-interview:

I thought that was the name of a Yokozuna at first. I thought it was the name of a Pokémon

I think you are right, but just to play devil's advocate a little bit, I think this bout was also a classic example of a much smaller rikishi doing everything to avoid mawashi sumo. I think Teru was right to be cautious here.

I do hope Hakuho will lose one of his matches now, and Ichinojo wins them all, because I'll feel a little robbed if those two don't go head to head this basho.

Takanofuji's painful face plant. (I think it's Takanofuji, please correct me if I'm wrong.)

That Kotoyuki. Even when he WINS he gets blasted off the dohyo.

Hakuho cleaning up the dohyo after morning practice.

Wakatakakage sending Kotoyuki to go buy bento

Saw this tweet just now. If you're a sumo fan and you're on Twitter you've probably already seen it considering it's got 20k retweets at the moment. An incredible match with a beautiful ending: edit: just realized that maybe this shouldn't be here, since technically this isn't 大相撲. No idea where it should go instead though.

Too bad I couldn't be there. I don't suppose it's much use but here's a pic of the matchup sheet.