Tetsuzukiyama

"Henkas abound, Asa aground" "Yokozuna has yusho stolen with own tricks" Hah, I love this thread. Makes me glad I kept my mouth shut 'til the end 'cause I'd be in DEEP. :-) Seriously though, isn't it only now becoming a consiprator's wet dream? The YDC comment above was funny as hell. It would only be too sweet if Hakuho became a Yokozuna next tournament on this henka. The ending was great, enjoyable if not for the wrestling than for the thrills. The Kotooshu videos play like a bad blooper reel though. I'm starting to feel sorry for the guy. Anyway, can't wait to see how a certain someone takes this in the next few months. Either Kisenosato is off the hook or he's really gonna get it. (Dripping sweat...) Oh, and congrats Hakuho. 13-2 says you're back, baby. ;-)

Well no kidding. YouTube to the rescue. I searched for Sumo, ordered by date, came up with this guy's channel ( http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ozora99 ) who's posted ten videos of the Jan 7th matches from a seat somewhere in the balcony. Actually, he missed the entire match for many of the videos.. but the rest are good and it gets you caught up a bit. For the Asashoryu match, low def, check out ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LpBdYyCUOY ) which has the whole shikiri and clocks in at 6:09. Just one vid from this guy. Finally Nishinoshima has followed up his Heya tour with some basho vids at ( http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=nishinoshima ) . I don't believe they are sekitori, but I haven't looked into it either. I don't really browse other video sharing sites but there's probably more out there.

Bwahahaha, I didn't have to say it. (Applauding...)

Bah, that's like a guy wearing pink. Just makes him a bigger man. Shows he has no problems with insecurity.

Just saw this interesting article pop up on the Google 'sumo' news feed: "The untold truth behind Roho vs Chiyotaikai" Being that we're such experts here on the forum I'm sure it's all come up here before, but this guy really seems to know what he's talking about. And now, a smiley to convey my REAL meaning, :-P

Sweeeet. Thanks god for that Baruto video page. I can just hear Kotooshu now : " I can't believe he would Henka an Ozeki!" What a great move! And WHYYYY did it work? Because Taikai was scared by the big man and off his game. Don't give me that 'henka is cheating' stuff. If you didn't have the henka in Sumo rikishi wouldn't be athletes, they'd be bulldozers.

Still, you can't ignore the fact that they're looking to swap easy opponents to Kaio so that he can make it back to his home town. He only needs one... WHAT? He beat Tochiazuma last night? Uwatenage, huh! Well, that lowers Baruto's Kinboshi matchup chances considerably. I need my videos, waaah! I can see that at 11-2 he was in the Yusho hunt going in to Day 14 last basho. It just seems that he's being given tougher opponents than he deserves through his size/hype/skin. Ama was riding that wave a few tournaments ago too.

Ahh, this is one of my favorite aspects of Sumo. Here's something that might help you understand the dynamic, or could possibly confuse you to no end... Since the Yokozuna/Ozeki have nobody higher than them to fight, there is a block of wrestlers 16 wrestlers will, for the most part, have to fight each other and share the same opponents. This means that the 11th to 16th positions are essentially screwed ( the meatgrinder ) because they're fodder for the top guys who need to face the 'best' opponents of that tournament. There's another block at the bottom where the lower-maegashira are only occasionally fighting the top of the Juryo, and so again there are 16 guys who are mostly pitted against each other. That leaves about ten guys in the middle block who, depending on how they start against each other, move up or down as the second week progresses. Confusing? Yeah, a bit. You can kinda see it on last tournament's Win-Loss Matrix on Masumi Abe's page, especially if you blur your vision. The ramifications of this are interesting. Baruto (ranked 18th) was outside the top-16 and was going to start off with a much, much easier schedule than 15th ranked Roho but since he started off well he'll be wading through the Sanyaku for week 2. Kokkai was ranked 20th and his schedule is laughably easy in comparison to both. This creates the 'meatgrinder' effect that spews the 8th to 15th down into the lower maegashira for the next banzuke while pretty much anyone between 15th and 30th with a winning record get sucked upwards for their crack at the big boys.

Thanks Anjoboshi. As always, Wikipedia helps avoid those pesky things like thinking, remembering or having to actually discuss anything. ( Joke! Joke! Sit down! ) I don't think we're going to get one this time. Asashoryu gets Miyabiyama on Day 10, then has the 5 Ozekis to play with for the rest of the week. Yeah, I had this niggling feeling that the math might be going against him now. Last basho he did take Kaio's slot against Hakuho, I guess I'm kinda hoping that he can pull that off again. Hell, if he was an honorary Ozeki at M11, why not at M4? He's already elbow-deep in Ozeki at this point in the basho without an especially fantastic record. You don't seek Kokkai facing any Sanyaku this time out and he's only two positions down with a better record.

Mod edit: deleted reference to OT post As the Roho thing showed yesterday, the prominence and success of the foreign stars is completely re-writing the record and etiquette books and there's not much of a comparison to make between the wrestlers of today and those of even 10 years ago, let alone the careers of the past 50 year's Dai-Yokozunas. I'm just glad that our first glance at Baruto vs the top 15 is making this one hell of a fun basho, much like Kotooshu and then Ama when they hit the meatgrinder slots for the first time. I'm willing to give him another few basho to see if he's more than just Scary Ozeki material like Kotooshu or Konishiki. The biggest thing I've noticed this basho is how good everyone is making Asashoryu look. The Baru-Asa match will probably be a big letdown, but boy-oh-boy I can't wait.

Oops, not what I meant. If you're looking for similar topics, you'll have better luck finding them in the Ama-sumo forum rather than the Ozumo one.

For blowing his nose on the guy's tie? That ain't any kind of assault I've ever heared of! Betcha the foreigner made the front page of the paper too. I did... Let's see this thread hit 300 posts! 400! Taikai's a clown! Roho for goodwill ambasador!

Really good quality documentary of the 2005 World Championships.

We usually talk about this stuff in the Ama-Sumo section. I had similar questions a while back and the Health Exercises and Shiroikuma videos are the cornerstones. There are lots of things to learn from watching Keiko morning practice videos too.

Don't know about the rest of the guys but Nagoya always brought me good luck with the babes. Actually, there was a girl I met at Izakaya Ja Nai in Okazaki for whom I still pine. Beeauuutiful. Great hair, too. Although I did live in Mito for a year so anywhere was a step up.