maglor

I wonder what the discrepancy is between the US and Japan; does Japan have more years of schooling or do kids start later? In the US someone born May 2004 would graduate college 2026

If the bar for Yok promotion has come down, then I think the bar for Ozeki promotion should also naturally come down, otherwise you end up with a useless Ozeki rank that contains Yokozunas on their way up or Yok prospects who got injured or old or fell off in some other way and are just collecting 8-7s until their demotion. Sumo is at its best when there are Ozeki who are clearly the 2nd tier in the sport, not as good as the Yok but still a challenge to everyone below. Kisenosato/Goeido/Kotoshogiku when I first started watching. Or Kotooshu and Baruto before that. Or Takakeisho for Terunofuji. If the standards hadn't come down then Hoshoryu could have been that to Onosato. But given where they are now I think 32 wins should be more than enough. For what it's worth if you look at the time span before the Futahaguro/Konishiki raising of standards, then you also see easier Ozeki promos. Quite a few with 31 or lower. It would have been nice if Daieisho had been promoted after 10-12-10.

There exists a mistaken belief that Onosato lacks some sort of skill that is important to being good at sumo. In reality the only skill that matters in sumo is being big and strong and mobile. Everything else is just tricks and tricks are for kids.

A lot of it is Hoshoryu fans trying to pretend that 1-3 is somehow better than 10-4

it's completely inconceivable to you that Wakatakakage or Abi would have beaten Kotoshoho? I don't understand why everytime some lower Maegashira has a good run and beats a few sanyaku we start talking as if he would have gone 13-2 against a joi schedule as well. He's benefited by a weak schedule even by the standards of lower Maegashira contenders, and has done well enough that he's in the Day 15 lead because of it. Good for him that's a hard thing to do; it doesn't mean he's actually performed better this basho than Aonishiki has.

Given that the only short rikishi of the last 10-15 years to be a competitor instead of a curiosity was Takakeisho, I'm not sure I can agree with this.

If I was a Jonidan rikishi scheduled to fight Kazuma who's 200kg and knows how to use it, I think my body might shut down beforehand too.

I don't understand the point of the one-year time limit. At the very least there should be allowances for rikishi who get it during high school or college to turn pro after their respective graduation. Seems like an easy way to draw more talent to the sport. And what's the downside? Some dude doesn't practice sumo for a couple years and goes 2-5 from Sd90TD? who cares

This is what I personally believe. Entering May 2025 the only two Y/O were a kyujo Terunofuji and a kadoban Takakeisho. There were two different ways they could have solved this problem with just slight deviations. If they had promoted Takakeisho after January, when he had put together a 12-3D and a 12-3Y as well as a relative stretch of good health, we would have had two Yokozuna and no issues whatsoever. If they didn't want to bend the rules for an injury-prone Ozeki, they could also have promoted Kiri to Ozeki after March and a stretch of 8-7, 11-4, 12-3Y. 31 wins + a yusho is perhaps a win short but they would have been promoting a young, healthy, improving sekiwake. Instead they created a scenario where they were a Takakeisho injury and bad peformances from Kiri + Daieisho from having to do something drastic to prevent a one Ozeki banzuke. I feel that in case we simply would have had one ozeki, and we would wait for someone else to put up 30-31 wins to balance out the banzuke again.

Taiho won 32 yusho, Hakuho won 45. Is that really such an extreme outlier? I don't really get the need for sports fans to insist that their sport's goat is greater than everyone else's goat. seems like a pointless discussion. sumo is a smaller sport and so there is room for more outliers at the top than bigger sports. is it possible or worthwhile to debate whether phil taylor(darts) is more or less of an outlier than hakuho?

Personally my takeaway is that he went 4-2 against sanyaku-level opposition, that's cool I guess. Nishikigi once had an 18-1 run while in the joi! Sometimes guys get on runs and pick up a few wins, it just means very little to me. The injury of course does not help matters, but at the end of the day he's 26 and has never gotten a KK in the joi. I think his chances of being a top rikishi are quite low.

Ichinojo also helpfully 6-9 at S1w for our consideration

The fact that they declined to promote Kiri with 31 wins over the last 3 basho and a kyujo Takakeisho does seem to indicate that they weren't too concerned

Akebono I believe did some things like this, haven't read his biography in a while so don't remember exactly

I think that is untrue. Aonishiki fought his fellow high-achieving Maegashira Hakuoho on Day 13, then Atamifuji fighting for his KK on Day 14, then a 10 win Sadanoumi on Day 15. This is basically the same as WTK's schedule to close out the basho - high-achieving M17 Asakoryu on Day 13, Hiradoumi fighting for his KK on day 14, then Tobizaru fighting for his KK on day 15. Are these softer schedules than just being thrown some joi guys? Yes, but schedulers like to ensure that both rikishi are motivated and so high-performing rikishi not in the yusho race often get relatively easier matchups by fighting 10win low maegashira and 6-7/7-6/7-7 guys. No 6-9 Sekiwake has ever stayed at Komusubi in the 6 basho era, including 2015/01 where a 6-9 S was dropped to Maegashira in favor of a 9-6 M6, a 9-6 M8 and a 10-5 M9. Generally speaking the banzuke committee approaches things from the top down, giving the higher rankers their "correct" spot and fitting the lower guys around them. Of course this new banzuke committee seems to favor incumbents/higher ranked rikishi more, but I'd still be quite shocked if Takayasu stuck around - I think it's 5% at best. A 11-4 M9 is hardly the sky falling - it's a 2 rank overpromotion.

My guess is that Onosato needs either 13 wins or a yusho, and preferably both, to have real chances at promotion. I think it's very difficult for them to debt 11-12Y-13Y, but they have denied 35 wins from M5(with no yushos) previously

Takerufuji won 13 to Nishikigi's 8 so I suppose he should go to Komusubi.

Gonoyama is already getting demoted behind guys who he calculates ahead of despite being in the joi, why on earth would he be demoted another 2 ranks for Onosho

so they just hate joi rikishi now, will keep that in mind. disaster for me, 46(i think)

It's my firm belief that the idea that 5 promotions means a 6th is less likely is just plainly wrong. Many examples in the last decade of 6+ promotions to maku where either a juryo guy who didn't calc to maku was promoted, a maku guy who could somewhat feasibly have been saved was demoted, or both. It's basically the same argument as "When there are a lot of Ozeki they are less willing to promote another one", which I have also seen no proof for.

Yes of course. To give an example of why I ended up promoting Tokihayate, I took a look at rikishi calculating to J1W(dropping) vs rikishi calculating to J1E(rising). Hoshoryu - 2022/07 - 10-5 J6E promoted for 3-12 M9W Ikioi with division cutoff at M17W Aoiyama - 2011/09 - 10-3-2 J6E promoted for 5-10 M13E Yoshiazuma with division cutoff at M17E Kotonowaka - 2020/01 - 8-7 J2E promoted for 0-0-15 M3W Kotoyuki with division cutoff at M17W Daishoho - 2018/11 - 8-7 J2E not promoted for 6-9 M14W Daishomaru with division cutoff at M16W Tokushoryu + Kyokushuho - 2017/01 - 11-4 J8E and 8-7 J2E promoted for 6-9 M14E Chiyotoori and 6-9 M14W Chiyotairyu with division cutoff at M16E Edit: missed 2022/11, Takarafuji calculates to J1E and survives ahead of Akua who is one rank ahead of him with 10-5 from J5. 90% of the bashos with someone at 10-5 J6E or 9-6 J4E or 8-7 J2E(I treat those as generally the same) are useless because either they had to be promoted with too many demotable records from Maku or they couldn't be demoted as that would require overdemoted a Makuuchi guy who should stay up. But the few bashos where they go up against a case similar to Endo's are very instructive.

The question is not "Where does a rikishi with X wins from Y rank go", but "Between Rikishi X with Y rank/record combo and Rikishi A with B rank/record combo, which one historically winds up ahead." Looking at rikishi moves in isolation is always quite useless. You see this every time discussions about promotion/demotion between divisions happen.

As Asashosakari said, this could be a glorious victory for me or it could be a one-way trip out of the top 10, we shall see. I'm sure I had a reason for Ura at M1W but I wish I could remember it. The Tokihayate promo might be insane but after spending an hour looking at precedent I talked myself into it.

I'm not sure why people care so much about "X record from Y rank did or did not result in promotion", especially for something with as much inherent variance as big results from bottom Juryo. A certain number of rikishi will be demoted from Makuuchi, and an equivalent number will be promoted from Juryo. The question is simply how many do you think will be demoted and what place in the promotion or demotion queue any given rikishi holds. Sure, if a certain rank/record combo gets promoted or demoted 95% of the time it is quite likely that the same will happen this time too, but by the time you are actually doing the banzuke it doesn't seem necessary.