dada78641

I made this screenshot a couple of days ago (not sure when, maybe a week ago) and forgot to post, but... If you ever feel bad about not remembering the kanji for people's shikona, don't feel bad, even NHK gets it wrong sometimes!

Yeah, I'm actually feeling positive about Asanoyama given how he's had a rough time clawing his way back to where he was before. And by that I mean he hasn't had his usual level of training opportunities. I would expect him to slide backwards a little bit because of something like that but he seems to have maintained his previous level of skill pretty well.

I feel for Ichinojo. It's clear he's in a really bad place, and when you're in a situation like that it's very easy to fall into addictive behaviors. Also, maybe I'm being too charitable by saying this, but having chronic back pain that can't be properly alleviated by pain medication is certainly something that can drive people to drink. I'm not saying that's the explanation, but maybe it made the problem worse and made him feel even more like he has no relief in sight.

Really a shame to see him go. He was always one of my favorites to watch. But I guess I can understand it if back pain is the main issue, as that can be extremely debilitating and it might just be that he reached his limit. I hope being out of sumo makes it a bit easier to do something about that.

Apparently Terunofuji now has a website, as announced on Twitter: https://terunofuji-official.jp/ I'm not aware of any other active yokozuna having had a website like this, aside from small things like personal blogs (like the one Hakuho had). This is a full on professionally made marketing site for just him. But then I honestly haven't looked into this that much so let me know if I'm wrong about that. There's not much to see there now though. There's one single video, and one single photo, and both of them show a "you must log in" error when you try to click on them. At first I thought that was a mistake but it seems to be intentional, it's designed as a paid members-only space, ¥1100 per month or ¥10000 per year, with a "premium" version for three times that amount.

Just a small note on this, but turning a video into a highlight causes Twitch to re-encode it completely, lowering the quality. So if you're planning on making local copies of streams it's best to do it from the "recent streams" version if possible, before it becomes a highlight.

It's incredibly sad, not just because it's the gateway to watching sumo for a lot of people, but also because there's very little historic sumo available to watch anywhere. It gets aired on NHK and then it vanishes into the aether. Youtubers covering the bashos not only provided a way for people to watch sumo outside of Japan, but also provided historical context by preserving people's reactions from the time of the tournament itself. To anyone who's sitting on sumo content that they're now unable to upload, I want to suggest the Internet Archive as a possible alternative. It's not immune from takedowns either, but it's far less of a target in general. I have a couple of sumo related videos on there, including a full day of coverage because it was Hakuho's commentary debut. But I do believe that nothing is safe if it's on the open internet and anyone who produces or stores sumo content should keep local copies if possible.

I wonder if Hokuseiho's 10-5 is enough to get him from J6 to the bottom of makuuchi. I'm feeling probably not, and he'll end up J1 or J2?

Yeah, absolutely it was a real physical injury, not just Takayasu being sad. This guy's been a rikishi for longer than today, he's not gonna lie down on the dohyo throwing a fit just because he lost a bout, even if it was an important one. Let's not kid ourselves. These guys are always on a knife's edge with the tachiai, especially when they go in head first. It's not at all surprising that something like this could happen, even if most of the time it goes well. It's like how a kachiage usually doesn't result in a KO, but... sometimes it does. It's actually more of a miracle that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

Although I can understand that the henka was a very anticlimactic move, I guess I can understand the reasoning for it from his perspective. If it works, it keeps him completely fresh for the next bout, while instilling the fear of another henka in the very henka-able Takakeisho. It very visibly made a difference in the bout with Takakeisho being unable to put sufficient power into the tachiai. All things considered, I've got really mixed feelings about the outcome of the basho. It's sad that Takayasu lost yet another golden opportunity for a yusho through a henka and a really unfortunate head contact of all things. And while it's nice for Abi that he managed to make such an immense comeback after his punishment for flouting the COVID-19 guidelines and coming a millimeter away from having to retire, I somehow find that I still can't quite be happy for him. (Lame as this might sound, I actually never quite forgave him for that SNS scandal, which permanently caused all wrestlers to be disallowed from posting on social media... that was an absolutely astounding level of stupidity on his part.) But well, what's done is done, and either way it's clear that Abi is going to be an absolute top class wrestler and title contender for a very long time. I'd be surprised if this was his last yusho.

Shame that he's leaving sumo so suddenly during the basho. He was one of the absolute rank-and-file makuuchi mainstays, only very briefly dipping his toe into juryo a few times over the years and I'll miss his presence. On a side note, it's somehow nice that he's opening something other than a chanko-nabe restaurant. I actually kinda feel like next time I'm in Japan I should do a Tokyo former rikishi restaurant tour. I don't know if anyone has a big list of former sumo wrestler restaurants anywhere, but I'm sure you can make a nice long route by now.

It's so, so difficult to quit drinking when you're addicted. It's absolutely impossible to escape, and if you've ever been addicted to alcohol can never just drink socially. Even just walking into a conbini can be enough for a full fledged relapse. I remember my dad telling me that in his younger years as a bartender he's seen way more people get destroyed through drinking than through other drugs, even during that time in the 70s in the Netherlands when people had a very liberal attitude towards taking even hard drugs. Seems like Ichinojo has it pretty bad and regardless of what the consequences will be for him as a wrestler, it's something that will probably hurt him for life.

Since I happen to be in Japan right now, this is how I watched the sumo today: With a nice cup of hot kocha in the local coffee shop. I'm glad Ichinojo is not kyujo given the recent problems. There were some pretty good explosive matches today.

I've not been active on the forum for a while, but I've definitely enjoyed this tournament. I'm glad 37 year old Tamawashi was able to clinch it. Even if he had to bump my favorite, Hokutofuji. These kids love their commentator grandpa: Some shots I thought were nice:

Pretty exciting end to the tournament. Bit of a shame we did not get the decider between Ichinojo and Terunofuji. Nice interview with Joe as well, I think the interview was probably more of a bother to him than the bout today. The audience enjoyed it too.