ViscountessNivlac

When it's a mandatory retirement age the intent and the calculus is slightly different, though. People living too long is the reason you set it low.

Considering just winning the difference would make somebody the eighth winningest rikishi of all time, probably, yeah?

Well, Onosato feels fairly inevitable.

Onosato is much older - here are Hakuho's first nine tournaments after turning 23:

Superstition, in my sumo? Never.

Back when John Gunning started teasing it in 2021 I had delusions of sitting ringside every day because nobody would want to go...

I got reasonably okay seats for the weekend - but it cost more than my sister seeing Taylor Swift twice.

I'm still waiting to see if London goes ahead before allowing my dreams to be crushed...

I guess part of me would like to think he could do it, but watching Takakeisho lose in the last days of the last basho felt like watching somebody die. It might be for the best if he were to hang up the mawashi.

After the first 11 days I can't see Wakamotoharu being much of a struggle for Takerufuji. Is he just going to run away with it?

I’m no fan of Hakuho’s, and I can’t see how his last yushō is very legitimate, coming off of a years-long run of showing up half of the time at best, but he’s certainly done a lot for the sport.

At that segment of edge of the dohyo there's not really any way to avoid sending your opponent down unless you're walking them out and they stop trying (assuming Takayasu was balanced enough to have regained his footing if the drop wasn't there). I can't fault Terunofuji for not being ginger about it.

Unless their break was until the ninth so they’ll be back on the tenth? It wasn’t entirely clear to me.

I’ve often wondered if that’s ever written anywhere. If it isn’t, then it’s an unenforced and unwritten rule - so it isn’t actually the rule.

If we haven’t heard anything else by now I imagine Hakuho is in the clear?