Polemics, only polemics !

[Hoshifransu 0]

Attention, the articles I've just found are very ... nasty towards the Sumo World, so don't believe what you read but polemics are often interesting to be read, and especially, when it's talking about our favourite item : sumo !

I found on the amazing Understanding Japan web page, (try the link and turn your PC speakers on and enjoy their japanese music) some polemics :

"80 percent of matches are fixed" according to Keisuke Itai, former sumo wrestler. Read more here ! Of course, I don't believe this, but when he anwers to the question : "Can fans tell by watching which matches are faked?" by "Amateur fans, no. I can tell 100% of the time. For ex-sumo wrestlers, it's easy to tell." ... he really frightens me ! I really hope he's 100 percent wrong !

The other polemic is diet for Sumo wrestlers !? Read more here ! Is it true ? I cannot believe it !

Finally, the article on Konishiki is amazing too ! Enjoy here ! There are a lot of lies on all these articles, (I hope), but when they write "Konishiki married to a model one-sixth of his weight" for example, it's certainly exagerated, but right or wrong ? This would be very funny !

So, react about these polemics :

Fixed matches in Sumo ?

Obese Sumotori would go on a diet ?

And BTW, does someone know if "Time Asia" a tabloid or a very very respectable paper ?

[Tony 16]

These rumours about fixed bouts are ridiculous! I think that Itai is a lier. After his retirement, people forgot him and his chanko had lot of problems. After his declaration, financial problems were settled! Strange, very strange!

[Kotoseiya Yuichi 3]

I suggest you don't waste your time on that l@m

[Hoshifransu 0]

"80 percent" cannot be believable, even by someone who would be follower of this. When you notice the fighting spirit of every wrestler in many bouts, all the injuries which are real, you can't believe this, of course.

[Zentoryu 154]

I stopped paying attention to this stuff. Why? Because I've gone beyond the point of caring anymore.

Every year someone brings up the Yaocho speculation.

Every time something big or amazing happens in Sumo (like Takanohana's performance last basho), someone claims it was yaocho. That it was all a big setup. Whatever.

It's like beating a dead horse.

Whether Yaocho exists (and I have my doubts that it does) or not doesn't matter to me. I will continue to watch regardless. Why? Because I love Sumo, and that's all that should matter.

[Hoshifransu 0]

Me too. Even if there were 100 percent yaocho and Sumo was like the WWF, I will carry on watching sumo !

[Tony 16]

It's impossible! When you look bouts, you can't imagine that 80% bouts were fixed. Maybe 1%!

[Kotoseiya Yuichi 3]

Prime opportunities to look out for evidence of yaocho are the last few days of the basho and the bouts involving a rikishi who has secured his kachikoshi and another who hasn't and is in desperate need for wins to avoid makekoshi and possibly a demotion to the lower division.

I believe in such cases there could be a chance for a kind of unspoken, reciprocal yaocho to exist. "I'll give less than my best now and expect you to pay your debt back should our roles be reversed some time in future". Such is the human nature, isn't it?

I think I read sometime somewhere about outspoken ideas to terrace the monthly payments of the maegashira to weed out the salaryman mentality alleged to prevail among the makuuchi veterans who've been proved to be unworthy of regular sanyaku rank, yet competitive enough to avoid demotion to juryo.

Possibility of a wide, organized yaocho scheme? Theoretically possible, of course. Like Finland qualifying to a football tournament. For me an indisputable exposure of such a scheme would mean the end for ozumo fandom. WWF is for pandas. (Grr...)

Then there's talk about kata-yaocho...

kata-yaocho, form of yaocho gratuitous to the winning rikishi since someone else has bought the torikumi to him without his consent

[Zentoryu 154]

Possibility of a wide, organized yaocho scheme? Theoretically possible, of course. Like Finland qualifying to a football tournament. For me an indisputable exposure of such a scheme would mean the end for ozumo fandom. WWF is for pandas.

I wouldn't watch sumo if it were like the WWF, or whatever they're calling themselves these days, either.

What I'm trying to get at, and perhaps I didn't word it correctly, is that I don't believe Sumo to be fixed, certainly not to the extent that Itai claims. If it were, and it was public knowledge, I wouldn't be any more of a fan of it than I would be of pro wrestling.

The fact of the matter is that no one, but NO ONE, has proven beyond a shadow of doubt that bout fixing takes place. There has never been that "indisputable exposure" of wide spread yaocho.

Unless I see that proof, I won't believe it. And until somebody proves it, I won't care to read about it and it won't affect my viewing, or love, of it.

What makes me ignore most Yaocho threads, both here and on the SML, is the near incessent, and very predictable, nature of it. I've gotten tired of it. Nearly every e-mail that comes to me from the list that even hints of a yaocho charge heads straight to the trash bin.

Prove it! Show me the money! Until then, like I said, IMO it's no better than the beating of a dead horse.

Prime opportunities to look out for evidence of yaocho are the last few days of the basho and the bouts involving a rikishi who has secured his kachikoshi and another who hasn't and is in desperate need for wins to avoid makekoshi and possibly a demotion to the lower division.

This is the one thing that I agree does exist. Here is the one area where you can find that almost "indisputable evidence" of Yaocho. The stats just don't lie about the 7-7 rikishi looking for wins on day 15.

Though it doesn't seem as prevelant as it was a couple of years ago. Perhaps because the public has taken note of it?