maorencze

Many people pondering the same question - how so? It seems quite simple, his father died suddenly in midst of preparations and that's not a thing anyone who has anything close to good relationship with his or her parents can let slide in several short weeks. The pain of loss still too new, coupled with all the recent problems, that's just too much for anyone to handle better than Hak did recently.

Tradition or not, this is a PR bomb that could severely damage public opinion and affect ticket sales. Even traditionalists in any country (Japan included) understand that times they are a changin' and women in society play much different role. Not sayin to just scrap the tradition alltogether, but understanding that current stance does not help their PR and behaving accordingly would be nice, for a change

Outside of his unlucky 2001, I don't see any basis for promotion considering his results. He was good, great even, but too often injured to show enough consistency. In any sports you see examples of guys like that, "could have been the best of the best, if healthy". Also, to take his numbers into consideration - of his 65 ozeki basho Kaio missed 13, thats 20% - a lot of time missing. Take these 13 away and you got 497 wins per 52 ozeki basho, thats 9,56 wins per basho. Comparing that to some of his "should-have-been" (EDIT: and some yokozuna) competition, Baruto had 10,07 wins per (healthy) basho; Chiyotaikai 9,4; Kisenosato 10,71; Kakuryu 9,92; Kotooshu 9,28; Kotomitsuki 9,2; Tochiazuma 9,84 And finally there is the eye test, sadly for me only through ancient videos from the web - this test tells me, that to my experience-limited eyes he was exactly what he was, which is a remarkable ozeki to be remembered as an epitome of this honorable rank for generations to come. But nothing more, and thats not necessarily a bad thing, I'd take a few great ozeki over the same amount of underwhelming yokozuna any day a week.

I'd say Takanohana obviously sent the woman up, but I can't find my sarcasm font anywhere

I would be one of these "some", had they not gone overboard. Takayoshitoshi deserved worse (at least 2 basho), Minezaki guy lot worse (Out!) and Takanohana a bit better. This is just too much, one more level down and rank-and-file shimpan job would have been enough.

Now that's a bit petty (and maybe vindictive too). Enough is enough, they made their point, let the guy be

Don't forget his fashion style, that rivals his submitted petition

Missing Tokitenku dearly, he was my favorite, King of Legfighters...anytime his name is brought up I feel so sad.

I'm curious what you'll do if after Wakatakakage gets promoted

I saw quite a decent sumo most of the bouts, Kakuryu is too critical of himself. Then again, to get to the top you probably need to be a bit of perfectionist

That may have been possible. Again, I was only trying to set the facts straight and to me the discussion seemed to be about "tsuna runs" and not "back-to-back standard". I don't understand why my interpretation of this is such a huge topic, all of you say that I missed the point, OK, I probably missed the point (and again, sorry, I saw it as something different than the rest of you probably had in mind), does this make the facts I stated incorrect? Asashosakari explicitly stated that back-to-back yusho standard has been essentially dead for 15 years. That didn't seem correct to me. Nothing more, nothing less (nothing sophistic about it). I read the context of discussion differently is all. Why is that so bothering I don't quite see, but I didn't mean any offense.

First I need to say, if you saw my comment as offensive then sorry, didn't mean it in any other way than differing from a statement that didn't seem correct to me, no offense meant. Well, for the sake of argument, since the time of Wakanohana I back-to-backs as a standard vs. other standards are scored 13:15 if I calculate correctly. That means that back-to-backs were never really alive apart from the 90s. In that sense, I may have misspoken what was my intention (which, judging from your reaction, you probably did as well) Also, from the discussion the only conclusion that could be made is that tsuna runs are discussed. Last but not least, you mentioned that back-to-back standard has "essentially been dead for last 15 years" (definitely not with an asterisk of "as the minimum standard required"), which I don't think is correct, for it's a) the standard has been dead for last 6 years (not 15), and b) the "enforced standard" occured during 1990-2012 but apart from that it was never really firm in place, so to talk about "dead standard" is not exactly correct Again, no offense was (and is) meant, sorry, just facts analysis

Asashosakari mentioned that for 15 years back-to-back yusho has been dead essentially, but judging from the last four promotions its 2:2, so that was not exactly a correct statement, I'd say. Did YDC mention they'd lower the criteria during some failed tsuna runs? Certainly. Would they really? That would surely depend on circumstances, but we'll just never know because those tsuna runs were exactly what I called them - failed. So I'd say the only way to judge this is to compare with actual promotion during that timespan and result is 2:2 - which means to me that back-to-back is well alive and kicking

Last I checked, both Hakuho and Harumafuji got back-to-back in that timespan, so I beg to differ.

It bears notion that GTB attempts for May are gonna be quite a hell (even compared to "usual")