tympsa

Retirement is close ? What motivation or real chance he has to come back from Juryo to higher ranks of sumo if knee is still busted, he doesnt want (or is not allowed) to have surgery ? How often does it happen that ex-ozeki continues in Juryo anyway ? Not often, I guess.Plus, he said repeatedly to Estonian media( already few years ago ) that he is tired from life in Japan and homesick .He already bought a farm here, I think his family is running it now.

I think Baruto may get this time his desired 10 wins to be ozeki again.He is oldtimer, respected rikishi, if he needs some help from other ozekis, I think he gets it. Harumafuji on the other hand has pretty much same problems. Clearly 9 wins were not yokozuna performance last time, if he gets another 9 or 8, he is in real danger of early retirement. He desperately needs at least 10-11 wins , yusho would be even better, but is he good enough to get it ? Will he get some help from ozekis if he badly needs it? It will be very exciting and interesting tournament, I guess...

And all of a sudden lot in yusho race depends from Baruto again. I think he cant beat Hakuho, but he certainly is able to beat Harumafuji when he has a good day. So I hope we get very interesting last 3 days. Can anyone predict what would be last match on Sunday ( on regular tournament I mean)? Hakuho- Baruto or Hakuho - Harumafuji ?

I admit I was wrong. Giku was

again i am thinking of much bigger terms (I am not worthy...) my scenario is as follows kotoshogiku is booked for ozekihood... tomorrow he will beat hakuho which opens the chance for a ketteisen between hakuho and harumafuji, with a hakuho-win against harumafuji on day 14 and in the process making aki-basho a tsunatori-basho for harumafuji maybe it is too much fantasy, but we have seen much more complicated schemes come true I think it is fantasy. Normally Hakuho is clearly better than Giku and with 10-0 record so far ,he has no wish whatsoever to drop a match here. He has bigger fish to fry( 15-0 win ) than to please Japanese crowd. Plus, anything may happen in kettei sen, Harumafuji has beaten Hakuho 9 times, more than any other active rikishi.Hak cant afford to fool around and risk to lose his yusho streak.

nice win today over Baruto. You could see how motivated was man who wants this promotion badly . 12 wins seems very probable now.

????? They are from same heya. What do you mean by that ? Too many yaochos for one beya ? I think only thing he meant was Osh would like if May results wouldnt count, but apparently they are and Kotooshu has to get 8 wins to stay ozeki.He probably will too. As for Kotoshogiku ozeki run , even 12 seems very difficult to achieve and may be not enough.Lot depends if Baruto is 100% motivated tommorrow .Baruto has a habit to relax little bit after KK and drop matches more easily. But if he gets at least 11 now, then maybe 12 in next basho would do the trick.

Agreed with this. We missing this ONE guy ( ot better two) who would make things interesting in very top.But IMO, Hakuho is not better than he was say... 6 or 4 months ago. He is still pretty much same. Gap between him and rest of the field is bigger ( or seems bigger) because Asa is missing. Presence of dangerous Asa put extra pressure on Hakuho and sometimes he couldnt handle it.Sometimes he slipped early, sometime Asa did, sometimes they both did and it gave rest of the field more chances to stay in yusho race and make things nervous for yokozunas. Tough competition between Asa and Hak made also rest of the field to look like better than they really were. Now their weakness is exposed. Now Hak is sure he wins anyway. He knows he can afford 1, 2 , or even 3 fluke losses and still win tournament.What a huge advantage it is in mental department ! Knowing the fact that he wins anyway,all pressure is off and he can steamroll over the field like it was bunch of amateurs. That missing ONE "good enough" guy means generally : level after Hakuho sucks big time. Which is bad for sport if main open questions of the of the tournament is who gets jun-yusho and whether all ozekis get their 8 or not. But we have what we have. We cant get Asa back to make things more competetive. And we cant make ozekis better, they are what they are - bunch of " i have to get my 8 " guys. All we can do is wait until some new challenger will arrive.It may take years. Hopeful signs Baruto gave during his ozeki-run , were obviously fools gold. Mirage is desert .He is not so good after all to challenge yokozuna.

You are regular Nostradamus predicting outcome of future tournaments. But only in your 1st sentence. (Laughing...) Everything else was... (Band playing...) , letś say exact opposite would be more accurate. No competition in top at all. Hakuho got his zensho yusho easier than Federer ever won the tournament. And rest of the field is really-really poor. And my prediction is : we will see Hak`s total domination in next few years or at least until his next serious injury. Far more dominant than Federer or Asashoryu ever was. At least Federer had Nadal on #2 spot even on his most dominant years. Fed never beat Nadal in Roland Garros. After Asa was kicked out, Hak has no real competition left. They are all his bitches.

quoting jakusotsu in the german chat: "it's an honour to lose to kaio" (tranlated from german) Sumo is a weird sport. It is honour to take a dive ?! If it is, I cant understand this kind of " honour". I guess we have current rules to blame in it : once ozekis reach their KK( and they are out of yusho race), they dont give a shit what happens next. They should change the rules and put the ozekis who score less than 10 wins, into kadoban.To get out of kadoban, he should score 10 or more in next basho.Perhaps we`ll get some real competition between ozekis then if they know simple 8 or 9 wins are not enough to avoid kadoban.

He needs two. I would even go out on a limb and say he needs one. I thought 13 wins and staying in yusho race were requirements? To be safe, he still needs one out of last two. Considering that Asashoryu is not there any more, it sounds reasonable . With 2 yokozunas they could cut him a little slack and settle with 12, but with only one top guy, bar is set higher. Last win is always the hardest. Pressure is on.

This stat is great. It tells pretty much who is the shoe in for ozeki. Could be nice if it included everyone's before ozeki stats. If anyone is up to doing more number noodling, I would love to see winning percentages of pre- and post Ozeki status. HF, for example, had significant numbers before his promotion, and his % now (post-promo) will be quite different. I would love to see these numbers too . But being very suspicious person , more interesting for me is : how much ( if any ) "help" ozeki candidates get from others. My understanding from sumo top men is - they are pro athletes and very competitive of course, but they are also colleagues. If your colleague at work needs help of favor( like couple of extra wins to get promotion or save his rank and salary ) and you can easily give it to him without harming your own interest, would you do it ? Especially if you know that favor will be returned if you need it desperately . After all sumo is not only their sport and passion, it is also their work and their income . Without knowing exact numbers I can still guess that every ozeki gets less wins after promotion than he got during his ozeki-run. Are they worse now, I mean younger ozekis ? Kaio and Mickey of course are not so good any more because of age and injuries . But Osh and ex-Ama ? Are they satisfied with ozeki rank, settled down and not trying so hard any more ? Or did they just get some extra wins from fellow rikishis during their ozeki runs and they dont get it any more ? And does Bart get some help during his ozeki-campaign ? His numbers are very-very good and sometimes he even wins matches he usually loses ... I wonder if this new and improved Baruto lasts after he gets promotion ? Remains to be seen

Looking at the number of posts in the last 12 hours I do not have the feeling that there is a sudden outburst of boredom. At the risk of being the only one here, I have to say that the decision to retire is right. He should have done it earlier, but at least he did it without being openly forced to. Now let's hope that a new contender for Hakuho will arise soon. Who is the most likely candidate ? Harumafuji ? Kotooshu ? Or even Baruto ? I cant see it happen in next couple of years at least. Ozekis are miserable and Baruto is not consistent enough, he is also too slow and clumsy. Hakuho will take lot of easy yushos in next years. Too bad Asa is gone . Lot of excitement and tough competition in very top left with him.

Well, they all are pretty much out of yusho race now, but out of these 3 Baruto was ( and theoretically still is) closer than others and Kotooshu was the weakest one. At least Baruto beat rest of sanyaku so far including all ozekis , which is almost always necessary to stay close to yokozunas, and didnt drop any matches to maegashira.

Baruto is M16E and Kasuganishiki M16 W. Roho, Kokkai,Kakizoe and Tochiozan are also East on their respective levels. http://sumo.goo.ne.jp/eng/hon_basho/banzuk...zuke.php?kaku=1