Kintamayama

Nagoya Basho 2021

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Let's not forget: Enho is a grown man and willing participant in a combat sport. If anything, he should be cheered on, not pitied.
(Although I'd be lying if I said I wasn't entertained by watching him being slapped around :P ;))

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Takagenji fought a smart fight against a smaller man who comes in extra low face down and is a leg grabber. I am surprised all his opponents don't try to ring his bell with a flat hand uppercut to get the little prick upright. 

Edited by gunner
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I'm impressed with the maturity in Terunofuji's sumo today. He went back to his old double-outside power move in the end, but only after trying hard to get an inside grip and fight more conventionally. And obviously his old power-move worked.

He knows it's an asset that on his day he can overpower *any*one, but he has learned that it's not wise to try and overpower *every*one.

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I'm surprised there's not more talk about the Hakuho hairpull on Endo at the end. Same kind of thing happened to Terunofuji last basho and they called him on it, but they couldn't mount the courage to at least discuss it at the end of day 2. 

Putting the above aside, there were some pretty interesting matches today, but Kaiju definitely continues to impress with his work in the ring. I'm hoping that Keisho is okay but kudos to Ichinojo for not forcing him out to a point of possibly aggravating whatever injury that Keisho had. 

Hopefully Takayasu will have a successful comeback for tomorrow, and we'll see how things for the rest of the division go too. 

Now if you'll excuse me, time to properly update my games results while on my last day of vacation with family

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25 minutes ago, WAKATAKE said:

I'm surprised there's not more talk about the Hakuho hairpull on Endo at the end. Same kind of thing happened to Terunofuji last basho and they called him on it, but they couldn't mount the courage to at least discuss it at the end of day 2. 

This is one of the things that frustrates me about sumo. Another one is Shini-tai (the dead body rule). Both are very arbitrary.  

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See, this basho there is no pressure on him. The focus is elsewhere. He can go up there without  overthinking it- he just has to mount the dohyo day by day, bout by bout, and enjoy himself without the pressure. By the time he gets to day 10 unbeaten, the focus will naturally shift to him. But by then he will have had his own momentum and will be brimming with self-confidence. Yusho. Bang.

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10 hours ago, Kaikitsune Makoto said:

I remember in ice hockey when player asked "what game is this???" and wanted to get back on ice after a big hit and concussion. Coach didn¨t let him go back on ice to figure out what game is it.

And not to forget Christoph Kramer. 2014 he took an elbow in the World Cup finale. He asked the referee if this is the finale, twice.

 

Takagenji...as long as there is no evidence he broke the rules, everything is "fine". But i do hope, some day, someone bigger than him - Ichinojo for instance - does the same to him. Well, at least it shows he fears Enho and that he is too incompetent to beat him with good sumo. If two guys about the same size decide to have a slapfest, it is always a pleasure to watch, but that....

 

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Hokuseiho looks very promising since he is still so immature and "weak". He was almost lifted by Shiba today and that shows some problems to really lower his centre of gravity. Of course he need more power and skill but with such improvements in last 6 months he is bound to succeed in juryo already. Hopefully he learns some Kotooshu like upwards pulling yori and gains the power to be formidable with that and we have another true gem.

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6 minutes ago, Benihana said:

And not to forget Christoph Kramer. 2014 he took an elbow in the World Cup finale. He asked the referee if this is the finale, twice.

 

Takagenji...as long as there is no evidence he broke the rules, everything is "fine". But i do hope, some day, someone bigger than him - Ichinojo for instance - does the same to him. Well, at least it shows he fears Enho and that he is too incompetent to beat him with good sumo. If two guys about the same size decide to have a slapfest, it is always a pleasure to watch, but that....

 

It's just not fun to watch that style, while we don't know the real intent, it sure looks like Takagenji is just trying to cause some sort of facial injury, bloody nose, to get him off his game and away from him. Plenty of other ways (more effective as well) to do that without open hand strikes like that, though it worked effectively this time.

I do like when Genji goes up against a Shohozan type (1-4 record against) who welcomes that type of thrusting slapfests. Wish he had a chance to face Yoshikaze in his prime as well, who would smile and thank him for the facial punishment while dishing out his own and escort him out of the ring.

In other injury reaction, the moment you saw Takakeisho switch to an outside belt grip instead of pushing up off his tachiai, you knew something was wrong. Really unfortunate to see as he was really coming into great form last basho. Rest up and heal well Ozeki.

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I don¨t understand why it would be somehow malicious to use violent harite or other nasty methods to keep Enho away. Enho is way too skillful to be fought "nicely". You let him inside and it is much more difficult to beat him. Best tactics against him (especially in juryo) is to keep him at distance and how to do that is to use force. He is often beaten in quite violent ways as it is the way that is most effective. Not many rikishi can rely on their skill and power in neat yotsu if Enho has good grip. Enho knows this and accepts it that he will get punishment a lot as his sumo is such that foes want him away from their mawashi. He is not timid and doesn¨t complain about that. I honestly don¨t know if there was some foul play in this bout but in general he must be dealt with power.

It is worse when extra unnecessary shoves happen after the bout when the loser has already loosened his defence and does not expect another shove. Those can be even dangerous and are othewise unnecessary and show lack of respect. Hakuho¨s "statements" when doing that are nothing but deliberate "lessons". Sometimes it clearly comes with the flow of aggressive bout but sometimes not.

Akebono didn¨t treat Mainoumi gently.

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1 hour ago, RabidJohn said:

I remember seeing the current Takadagawa-oyakata in a similar condition after Hakkaku riji-cho gave him a good seeing to at the Royal Albert Hall in 1991.

Edit: That's back when they were Akinoshima and Hokutoumi, for the benefit of anyone who might think I witnessed a brawl between two elders.

Always loved watching Hokutoumi back in the day. He had a great attitude.

Only fought Chiyonofuji once, because they were heya-mates, and it was a good tie-break bout.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/ayP57qRsGkQ

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1 hour ago, WAKATAKE said:

I'm surprised there's not more talk about the Hakuho hairpull on Endo at the end. Same kind of thing happened to Terunofuji last basho and they called him on it, but they couldn't mount the courage to at least discuss it at the end of day 2. 

Maybe they just didn't see it? I may be wrong but I don't think video replays can be used if none of the ringside judges call a mono-ii. I think it was harder to spot than the Terunofuji one. 

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18 minutes ago, ryafuji said:

Maybe they just didn't see it? I may be wrong but I don't think video replays can be used if none of the ringside judges call a mono-ii. I think it was harder to spot than the Terunofuji one. 

That, plus his fingers just slipped from the back of Endo's head and basically just got hooked in his mage for 2 seconds before Hakuho corrected that without ever closing his hand. Teru slipped too but, though I really don't think he did it maliciously, it still seemed to me like he went into some kind of reflex grip on Myogiryu's hair, plus he stayed that way a bit longer.

I'm not saying the judges would have been absolutely wrong to disqualify Hakuho on that, but I do think it was a fair call.

Edited by Bombur
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1 hour ago, Kintamayama said:

See, this basho there is no pressure on him. The focus is elsewhere. He can go up there without  overthinking it- he just has to mount the dohyo day by day, bout by bout, and enjoy himself without the pressure. By the time he gets to day 10 unbeaten, the focus will naturally shift to him. But by then he will have had his own momentum and will be brimming with self-confidence. Yusho. Bang.

I'm actually not sure who you're talking about here. Hakuho? Or Tokushoryu? Chiyosoma...? :-D

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2 hours ago, WAKATAKE said:

I'm surprised there's not more talk about the Hakuho hairpull on Endo at the end. Same kind of thing happened to Terunofuji last basho and they called him on it, but they couldn't mount the courage to at least discuss it at the end of day 2. 

It was obvious but didn't effect the bout. I would imagine they wish to avoid giving him a bad start on a technical call.  The last thing they want is for his record to go south quickly and have him drop out after all this time with no Yokozuna.

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1 hour ago, Rocks said:

It was obvious but didn't effect the bout. I would imagine they wish to avoid giving him a bad start on a technical call.  The last thing they want is for his record to go south quickly and have him drop out after all this time with no Yokozuna.

I think they key is that there wasn't a pull—the moment Hakuho's fingers got tangled in the hair, he pulled them back out. Had he followed through on the move, it probably would have been called.

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And, it didn't really matter. Hakuho had already put Endo into a motion he couldn't recover from without the hair pull. I've seen them not call some blatant end of the match hairballs because they just didn't affect the outcome.

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Eh, I'm not sure that logic applies consistently either. You could argue Terunofuji's hairpull also didn't affect the bout, but it was still called as hansoku against him. The fleeting nature of Hakuho's is really what separates them IMO, if they are indeed separatable at all.

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14 hours ago, robnplunder said:

Even before this match, I hated Takagenji for his past behaviors.  If he has half a brain, he can beat Enho without resorting to slapping him around.  He has an overwhelming size advantage over Enho.

As this bout came up, I said aloud to my wife (who of course, loves Enho), "Ugh, Takagenji, I hate this guy.". 

Felt so justified afterwards. As stated, aside from any controversy of legality of strikes (I didn't have a problem with them), hardly the honourable way to go. But a win is a win, that's what it's all about I suppose.

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Alright I'm all caught up and can see now (after already posting my above reply) that the Enho/Takagenji conversation has been done to death. My apologies.

Not to make like of Takakeisho's condition, as seeing him prone in that stance post-bout was devastating -- but (assuming kyujo) that's Terunofuji's two strongest opponents since his return gone. I don't mean to jinx him, but the stars are aligning.

EDIT: Ah, Takayasu is back today. You'd think I'd know this.

Edited by Godango

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7 hours ago, Morning said:

What discussion do you expect? One fight saw one rikishi stumbling about after being slapped silly, so we are discussing whether the attacking rikishi went overboard. The other saw one rikishi faltering with no apparent outward cause, what's more to say than: let's hope it is a pinched nerve and great reaction by Ichinojo who kept a hold and lent a supporting shoulder till Takakeisho was at least in a stable position.

Yes, everything known about Takakeisho has already been said until we have more info.

Further, this is the second time that Takakeisho has "frozen" following a ring injury. It happened one before a while back, and though it looked serious in the moment, if I'm not mistaken he was back on the dohyo the next day. Hopefully he will be today too. 

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Tokiwayama oyakata yesterday on Takakeisho's condition:

"When he charged with his head he felt a jolt of electricity racing through his neck. He is/was fully conscious. We won't know until tomorrow whether he will be able to mount the dohyo. We'll decide after seeing how his condition is tomorrow."

Edited by Kaninoyama
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