Reonito

It's only happened 3 times, the example would be from the 1930's which I don't put any stock in, two more recent instances were 1985 when they were more generous with extra ranks, and 2007 when there was an opening. But just like not re-ranking komusubi based on wins, I think we can infer they wouldn't feel the need to force it.

they absolutely can if he gets exactly 10 and there's no opening

He's the clear winner, closely followed by Hokutofuji.

Okay, I did the search by hand. Since 1958, we've had a handful of rikishi moving from the east to the west side with a 6-9 (most recently, Kotoshoho in 2023). But keeping the exact same rank happened only 3 times before this banzuke: Kainoyama M8w in 1962, Hirowaka M4w in 1967, and Tochinohada M14w 2011 (the technical examination tournament). So you have to either go back ~six decades or look at the basho* right after a bunch of rikishi were forcibly retired for match-fixing to find a precedent for what they did with Hokutofuji and Nishikifuji.

But not for those whose injuries were actually severe enough to sit out some bouts I guess...

I can't even think of a 6-9 non-demotion at any Makuuchi rank aside from one guy on the 2011 scandal banzuke.

I think you predicted this almost exactly

There's another hypothesis that I won't go into here but I also guessed they wouldn't reorder them.

Also 58, every guess was either a bullseye or a complete miss. I have some many questions. Is this a new banzuke committee? Did anyone even consider Nishikifuji staying?

Oh man, GTB is only nerd level 5?

I recall it just hung instead of taking me to the new page; just tried it now and it took me there fine

Oh I hadn't noticed that Asanoyama only had 14 bouts on the helper!

debatable

Leeway as in staying in Makuuchi? I don't think there's any chance that happens with 3 wins at M12. If they don't want to promote Kitanowaka, they can keep Chiyoshoma. And while it's a secondary consideration in this case, why give a Makuuchi slot to someone who's guaranteed not to fight in September?

I think Ryan weighs the notion of a "Juryo joi" a lot more heavily in his predictions.

I know; I wasn't going to get into nationality/residence/ancestry...

I guess this depends on the definition of "Western."

The link isn't working for me. I remember @Chiyotasuke had an issue with his github page and set up an alternative for July, but I don't remember where that alternative is...

Because sitting out one tournament would only drop him to Sd40 instead of having to start at Sd90?

Interesting! I wonder if Chargaff read his work!

The version I know is: "That...such giant shadows are cast by such pygmies only shows how late in the day it has become". -Erwin Chargaff.

He looked a little light in his one loss to Hitoshi; it'll be interesting to see how he fares against bigger guys. Given the rest of the records, I think he's likely to be in the promotion zone, Ms4/Ms5.

Assuming I didn't miss any, this is the 5th basho in the 6-basho era with all 5 S/K having winning records (joining 1969.11. 1970.01, 2000.03, and 2021.03). There are other basho with 5 kachi-koshi S/K, and one with 6, but they all had other S/K who went make-koshi.

My mistake, fixed, thanks!

Yeah, E over W might not be enough to overcome J6 vs J10 ... but the whole thing might perplex them enough to save Onosho