Kaninoyama

Says the man who's stated goal is to reach Ozeki.

I've seen him up close (like literally right in front of me) during Isegama-beya training camps and he is extremely muscular and huge even by sumo standards. Yet Terunofuji is so large himself that he makes even Takarafuji appear small by comparison.

I think it was more that he lost his balance and knew he was going down, at which point all rikishi are well trained in how to fall properly, which can appear, as you noted, as if they are throwing themselves to the ground, where actually in this case it was simply a well-disciplined fall.

Does anyone doubt a fully healthy Terunofuji's ability to quite easily fight his way back to ozeki from the lower maegashira ranks or even juryo if it came to that? If he can fully heal by next basho then of course he should compete and seek to regain his status. But if he does so not fully healed, he'll be facing this same sort of carousel ride over and over without fully realizing his potential. IMO that would be an unfortunate waste of his talent.

Long term, Terunofuji dropping from Ozeki may be the best thing that could happen to him. Prior to his injury he was about as close to a lock as possible to become the next yokozuna. Now he can go kyujo for two or three basho, get fully healthy, and then get back on track toward his march to Yokozuna. This is presuming, of course, that he doesn't rush back next basho to try to get his 10 wins and back to Ozeki ASAP.

Chiyotairyuu has impressed with his newly added heft. I wonder if he took note of Takayasu's success after Taka added significant bulk and decided to follow suit. Chiyo's always been tough to beat when he dominates the tachi-ai, and should be even more so now with the increased mass.

My favorite Day 3 quote, courtesy of guest commentator Takanohana prior to deshi Takanoiwa's bout during NHK's broadcast: Announcer: "Takanoiwa had been suffering from pneumonia leading up to this basho and was unable to train until just two days prior." Takanohana: "He shouldn't have gotten pneumonia!"

Fourth week of August.

Interesting, as he was completely absent from Isegahama-beya's August training camp in Niigata. Haramafuji was there, but his activity was limited to light sparring and some focused work on his tachiai.

I recently had an up-and-close look at Midorifuji from Tier 2 over three days during the recent Isegahama-beya training camp in Yahiko. He was far and away the most skilled of the stable's non-sekitori rikishi. In fact his keiko performance was very reminiscent of Terutsuyoshi a year ago when he completely dominated his fellow lower-ranked stablemates at Maukushita-joi and later broke through into Juryo. However, Midorifuji is very light and may struggle in terms of size as he progresses up the ranks. Still a young rikishi to keep an eye on though.