Trivia bits

[Asashosakari 19,941]

Yeah, the respective record holders before Onosato were Sadanoyama (2 yusho in 8 basho) and Taiho (3 yusho in 11 basho). In the 6-basho era anyway; in the entire yusho era since 1909 there's also Tochigiyama who won in his 6th, 7th and 8th makuuchi tournament, but obviously more than three years had passed since his top division debut.

[Bunbukuchagama 827]

3 hours ago, Gurowake said:

My memory is that only Sadanohana had a yusho from such a low rank in that time period.

You win if you meant Sadanoyama. 

[Gurowake 4,123]

2 hours ago, Bunbukuchagama said:

You win if you meant Sadanoyama. 

Bad memory.

[Reonito 1,613]

As far as I can tell, this basho set the record for most top-division rikishi with records of 6-9 and 9-6 with 20. The split is exactly 10 of each, which ties the record for 6-9 but it two off the record for 9-6. I haven't checked for differences in division size.

[Kaminariyuki 519]

On 15/07/2015 at 17:41, Kintamayama said:

Hakuhou has never lost to ANY current non-Mongolian foreigner.

Tochinoshin: 19-0

Aoiyama: 11-0

Gagamaru: 5-0

Kaisei: 5-0

Oosunaarashi: 3-0

Amuuru-: Never met

OK, now there's an obscure new title, GOAT of non-Mongolian foreigners! As I notice that I'm responding to a thread fro about the time I started watching sumo a decade back. But, such trivia, although some of it might need updating, is still valid!

[Kaminariyuki 519]

On 18/03/2025 at 03:39, rhyen said:

Midorifuji has lapped both Tochiozan and Toyonoshima combined for katsukashi wins. Will he be the first to reach triple digits.

How many does he have? Just from memory, I'd think if he stays healthy, he's got a shot.

[krindel 684]

49 minutes ago, Kaminariyuki said:

OK, now there's an obscure new title, GOAT of non-Mongolian foreigners! As I notice that I'm responding to a thread fro about the time I started watching sumo a decade back. But, such trivia, although some of it might need updating, is still valid!

That was a very time specific trivia point. Hakuho had 15 total Makuuchi losses against Kotooshu, Baruto and Kokkai before that, but they were all retired at that point. He also lost a bout to Tochinoshin after that posting.

[Asashosakari 19,941]

Since Nagoya 1960 (7-bout era), there have been 30 tournaments without any yusho playoffs in makushita and under. In chronological order, back-to-back instances in bold:

1961.07, 1962.07, 1962.11, 1967.09, 1967.11, 1968.11, 1969.03, 1969.05

1970.03, 1971.03, 1972.03, 1973.01, 1973.05, 1975.01, 1976.03, 1977.09

1991.09

2001.07, 2006.03

2013.01, 2013.05, 2013.07, 2014.09, 2015.01

2020.09, 2021.03, 2021.09, 2024.07, 2025.01, 2025.03

A chance for Natsu basho to make it the first three-peat.

Edited April 14 by Asashosakari

[Asashosakari 19,941]

Not really trivia, more an unexplainable oddity I spotted recently. From the Kyushu 1975 results and next ranks:

2-5 ↓	Hinodeyama	Sd12e	Ms49	Okoyama#	5-2	Ms32e
4-3	Daisho#	Ms41e	Ms50	Tatsutani#	5-2	Ms32w
0-0-7 ↓	Goryu	Sd6e	Ms51	Ryuki	3-4 ↓	Sd2e
2-5 ↓	Yoshinokawa	Sd14e	Ms52	Osorezan	4-3	Ms43e
4-3	Hozan	Ms43w	Ms53	Tengozan	4-3	Ms44w
3-4 ↓	Koganenishiki	Sd5e	Ms54	Iwatsuki	4-3	Ms45e
3-4 ↓	Rikinishiki	Sd5w	Ms55	Chiyominato	0-1-6
0-0-7	Hikarifuji		Ms56	Yamatoiwa	5-2	Ms37e
4-3	Kurihara	Ms46w	Ms57	Hanakado	0-5-2 ↓	Sd9w
3-4 ↓	Yuba	Sd9e	Ms58	Okawa	4-3	Ms47e
2-5 ↓	Tochioyama	Sd18e	Ms59	Tominoumi	2-5 ↓	Sd18w
5-2	Kotojinryu	Ms41w	Ms60	Kokuyo#	4-3	Ms48w

Some extremely puzzling small demotions for zero-win Goryu and Hanakado there; there's nothing else anywhere near like that in other tournaments before or after, and 0-0-7 records in high sandanme on the same banzuke also dropped as usual. But they can't be database errors either as there aren't any other records you can give them that would make better sense of their subsequent movements. Just weird.

[Reonito 1,613]

I know we have a consecutive Makuuchi bout tracker, but do we have a consecutive basho tracker? Takayasu is at 82 and counting (83 once the Natsu banzuke comes out), since Nagoya 2011. The entire streak is since his debut; he's never dropped to Juryo.

[Kotoroiwa 69]

Maybe this has been mentioned, but...

The kabus of Dekiyama and Kiriyama are listed vacant. They are held by Dewanohana and Kurosegawa respectively who were both born on May 13th, 1951. 

[Reonito 1,613]

This is the first time since 1959, when Makuuchi was bigger, that M18 has appeared on two consecutive banzuke. It's the second time in modern history that we've had only 7 sanyaku ranks for two consecutive banzuke, but the Kyushu 2021 banzuke didn't feature M18 because it left Hakuho's spot blank, resulting in only 41 rikishi in Makuuchi.

[Asashosakari 19,941]

This amused me as I'm going through last basho's lower division matches...Mishima vs Goshima:

Appropriately, the rikishi representing the larger number of islands prevailed in the bout.

The DB knows of 565 match-ups between rikishi whose shikona both started with a numeral kanji. This was the first one where the number was the only thing that differed between their names.

[ryafuji 823]

On 26/04/2025 at 15:25, Reonito said:

I know we have a consecutive Makuuchi bout tracker, but do we have a consecutive basho tracker? Takayasu is at 82 and counting (83 once the Natsu banzuke comes out), since Nagoya 2011. The entire streak is since his debut; he's never dropped to Juryo.

Don't think we do. He must be the leader among active rikishi (Tamawashi's streak is only from Nagoya 2013 due to him dropping to juryo a few times) but he has some way to go to surpass Kaio (106), Hakuho (103) and Takimiyama (97).

Edited May 5 by ryafuji

[Reonito 1,613]

On 12/03/2025 at 15:16, Asashosakari said:

Frequently one or the other 6-0 lost (or even both), so 7-0 playoffs were still rare despite that approach. I thought I might have made a list of those at some point, but I can't find any post like that just now, so...

It looks like if you go further back, 7-0 playoffs were fairly routine. Would you happen to know what was different about the torikumi making in the 1960's-1980's? Is it just that the division size was larger so 7 rounds wasn't enough to get to a single 7-0?

Edited May 5 by Reonito

[Gurowake 4,123]

25 minutes ago, Reonito said:

It looks like if you go further back, 7-0 playoffs were fairly routine. Would you happen to know what was different about the torikumi making in the 1960's-1980's? Is it just that the division size was larger so 7 rounds wasn't enough to get to a single 7-0?

I haven't looked at the details at all, but I suspect many of them might be do-beya playoffs.

[Reonito 1,613]

3 hours ago, Gurowake said:

I haven't looked at the details at all, but I suspect many of them might be do-beya playoffs.

I just randomly looked at three, and none of them were...

[Gurowake 4,123]

 

5 hours ago, Reonito said:

It looks like if you go further back, 7-0 playoffs were fairly routine. Would you happen to know what was different about the torikumi making in the 1960's-1980's? Is it just that the division size was larger so 7 rounds wasn't enough to get to a single 7-0?

OK, now that I looked at the details of the rikishi in the playoffs, it's obviously because Makushita was much bigger.  There are plenty of basho in the 60s where there were more than 192 rikishi in Makushita, meaning there would be more than 1.5 expected 7-0s.  As long as there are more than 128 competing there's at least some chance of there being more than 1 even before considering heya, and it's more likely than just the expected percentage since the Makushita rikishi matched up against the top Sandanme rikishi would be more likely to win in general.

Edited May 5 by Gurowake

[Reonito 1,613]

17 minutes ago, Gurowake said:

 

OK, now that I looked at the details of the rikishi in the playoffs, it's obviously because Makushita was much bigger.  There are plenty of basho in the 60s where there were more than 192 rikishi in Makushita, meaning there would be more than 1.5 expected 7-0s.  As long as there are more than 128 competing there's at least some chance of there being more than 1 even before considering heya, and it's more likely than just the expected percentage since the Makushita rikishi matched up against the top Sandanme rikishi would be more likely to win in general.

Yeah, I guess the de facto 7-round single-elimination yusho race we know and love is a felicitous coincidence of the current division size being just under 2^7.

[Bunbukuchagama 827]

20 minutes ago, Reonito said:

Yeah, I guess the de facto 7-round single-elimination yusho race we know and love is a felicitous coincidence of the current division size being just under 2^7.

Exactly; 128-and-under is a perfect size for a 7-round quasi-playoff tournament.

[Asashosakari 19,941]

Yeah, everything before 1967 was due to a much larger makushita division. The multitude of cases in the 1970s include one do-beya situation (1970.07), a whole bunch of upper-ranked 6-0's who got paired with a juryo opponent for their zensho/promotion-clinching bout, and only one basho that defies explanation at first glance (1976.07).

Edit: I suspect the upper 6-0 in that last case was paired with Ms4w 5-1 due to a crowded promotion queue situation. There's no 6-1 score until Ms25.

Result	East	Hoshitori	Rank	West	Hoshitori	Result
4-3 ↑	Iwashita		Ms1	Dewanohana		4-3
3-4	Matsunoyama		Ms2	Kotonosato		2-5
4-3	Wakasoryu		Ms3	Oshinoyama		3-4
3-4	Taninoumi		Ms4	Kanaya		5-2
3-4	Tamaonami		Ms5	Teruyama		5-2
2-5	Kitanohana		Ms6	Iwatora		3-4
4-3	Kototateyama		Ms7	Shinko		7-0 Y ↑

 

Edited May 5 by Asashosakari

[Tsurukame 10]

Just noticed that for the second tournament in a row, the eighth from last bout will be Ura vs. Ichiyamamoto - with both holding the same ranks as last time, too. They even posted the same result (7-8) last tournament.

Edited May 9 by Tsurukame

[Asashosakari 19,941]

It was probably mentioned somewhere around the forum last basho, but Oshoryu completed the unsalaried divisions yusho set when he won makushita; the other three titles had come all the way back in 2019. He is the 8th rikishi to do so, the others were:

Haguroyama (in 1935-1936, career high rank yokozuna)
Shinzan (1960-1966, J18)
Itai (1978-1982, komusubi)
Tochiazuma (1995, ozeki)
Kuniazuma (1995-2000, J4)
Ryuden (2012-2015, komusubi)
Hokuseiho (2020-2021, M6)

[Tigerboy1966 1,539]

I think this may have been mentioned before but...

Sadanoumi extends his record. 57 basho as a maegashira without ever making it to sanyaku.

Next on the list are Higonoumi (53),  Asanowaka (52), Toyohibiki (52), Kotoryu (51) and Tokitsuumi (50)

[Kachikoshi 45]

On 10/05/2025 at 13:57, Asashosakari said:

Haguroyama (in 1935-1936, career high rank yokozuna)

I had never looked in to Haguroyama before. Wow, what a career! He started from the bottom and spent only one tournament in each of the five lower divisions, each time winning the division yusho. He then spent the remainder of his time in Makuuchi and won seven yusho there.