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Gurowake

Hypothetical changes to Ozumo that make some sense but will likely never happen

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6 hours ago, Oortael said:

To go along with your idea, I'd rather go with a 9-bouts schredule for Makushita and keep the 7-bouts schredule for lower divisions. Keeping a swiss-round like schredule would be impossible, so I'd make Makushita rikishi face their closer neighbours regardless of W-L record for the first 6 bouts, then yusho contenders start facing each others from there. I think that would be an easier to put in place than @Gurowake 's changes, while keeping it closer to nowdays basho. That would increase the number of bouts per day slightly, so that might require some timing adjustment (starting Jk ealier, or whathever).

I mean, this is kinda what the goal of the system I proposed is.  I suppose it's easier to just give all Makushita rikishi 9 matches, assuming they're handled the same way as I suggest as being all three of the last days, since as noted there's still a lot of time left to use up.  I just thought that it really isn't all that necessary to give those not in line for Juryo within the current or next basho the extra matches, since the whole point of the extra matches is to give them more matches among potential sekitori,

As to the need to do this, no, there's no need.  But I find that quite often there's a very real barrier at the top of Makushita simply because of how compressed the banzuke is and how few matches they fight.  

Edited by Gurowake
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19 minutes ago, Gurowake said:

Of course, we're talking about making it harder to maintain Ozeki when there are so very few of them that I don't know how welcome such a change would seem.

I think the answer is to make the criteria for Ozeki promotion more lenient, say 30 wins (obviously 33 isn’t a rule anyway) and take a more relaxed approach to a 9 win basho within the 30 or a result achieved outside sanyaku. The quality control against the promoted rikishi then failing to maintain Ozeki standards would be the 10 win requirement. 

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19 minutes ago, Yamanashi said:

WAIT, IS SHODAI AN OZEKI?(Detective...)

 

How about double digits at least once in a calendar year?  That seems reasonable.  [Also, Mitakeumi would clear that bar:-)]

I think anything like that is better than 8 wins 3 times a year 

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6 minutes ago, Jemuzu said:

I think anything like that is better than 8 wins 3 times a year 

A couple years ago, I suggested that ozeki kadoban be revised.  If an ozeki failed to get 10 wins, he would be kadoban for the next basho.  He could survive on 8 wins a basho forever,  but he would always be in danger of demotion.  Ten wins would buy him kadoban insurance for the next basho.  It would break the 8-9 win fiasco of the ozeki corps and lead to much more challenging yusho races.  Ozekis would be more aggressive in the waning days of the basho.

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3 hours ago, Jemuzu said:

I would introduce what I’m going to call the ‘Shodai law’ to tighten up minimum required standards to retain the Ozeki rank. Alongside the current rules, Ozeki will be required to attain 10 wins at least once in a rolling 3 basho period, thus ending the ability to hang onto the Ozeki rank for years by getting an 8 win kachikoshi once every couple of basho.

Applying this rule retroactively (and assuming the rikishi were so distraught after their demotion that they would not regain it)

Demoted from Ozeki in:

Goeido - 3 basho
Kotoshogiku - 8 basho
Kisenosato - no change
Kotooshu - 4 basho
Harumafuji - 6 basho
Terunofuji - 5 basho
Baruto - 14 basho
Takayasu - 3 basho
Takakeisho - no change
Kakuryu - 6 basho
 

So you might want to make it easier to become Ozeki, too

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For my own suggestion: allow specialists without sumo experience to join certain kyokai positions (doctor, media manager, etc).
I mean full positions, no advisory board nonsense.

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Dohyo laser sensors with high speed cameras to make clear who is out/down first.

No need for shinpan anymore, they can be moved to other more important duties like, umm... fan service and guarding the hanamichi (come one, all they do is just sitting all day and taking whatever notes). The gyoji is given the power to decide shinitai matters.

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54 minutes ago, Tsuchinoninjin said:

So you might want to make it easier to become Ozeki, too

Speaking of which, what should be the Ozeki criterion in a 23-bout basho system? 

And what is the unofficial "Yokozuna kachi-koshi" level?  15 wins?

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7 hours ago, Yamanashi said:

[No, I don't think this is the one thing yadda yadda ... ]

I feel judged! (Laughing...)

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On the ozeki kadoban topic. I can't remember the source, but I remember reading/watching something once with a suggestion similar to the following, I'll bullet point it for clarity:

  • Ozeki as a rank in part functions as signifying yokozuna candidate/s.
  • The median basho spent at Ozeki before Yokozuna promotion is 10.5*. 
  • Perhaps the better system rather than any kind of kadoban, is that an ozeki gets n (where n = median/2) losing records at the rank and is then demoted.
    • For example, if n=6 (rounding up), an ozeki can get 6 losing records in their time at the rank. They are then straight demoted, no kadoban, no ozekiwake. They can earn repromotion again the old fashioned way, which they should be able to if they are worthy of the rank.

I feel like some version of this would provide decent balance to holding ozeki performance to account, allowing them perhaps consecutive basho kyujo if they genuinely need it, and having a system in place that can't be abused indefinitely.

*Starting point from Asashio III, first Yokozuna to spend his entire preceding Ozeki stay in the 15-basho per year era. Also only includes the time at Ozeki that led to promotion for those Yokozuna with multiple tenors at Ozeki.

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2 hours ago, Yamanashi said:

Speaking of which, what should be the Ozeki criterion in a 23-bout basho system? 

33 wins in 2 tournaments, since 3 tournaments at 15 bouts is roughly the same as 2 tournaments at 23 bouts. 

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13 hours ago, Seiyashi said:

The boat on this is quite unfortunately missed, I think. It would be cheaper and faster to enable this via the NSK's official app. I was entertaining daydreams about masu-seats coming with a nice monitor for this so your party could rewatch bouts, but that'd hardly be a justifiable infrastructure expense.

I'm talking about a big screen, a la any modern sporting venue. Watching live, the action is easy to miss, and if you're in the nosebleeds, it can be difficult to see what's going on anyway. A big screen would improve the live viewing experience, IMO. 

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6 hours ago, Jemuzu said:

I think the answer is to make the criteria for Ozeki promotion more lenient, say 30 wins (obviously 33 isn’t a rule anyway) and take a more relaxed approach to a 9 win basho within the 30 or a result achieved outside sanyaku. The quality control against the promoted rikishi then failing to maintain Ozeki standards would be the 10 win requirement. 

This is what something like that would have looked like in the past decade. Kotoshogiku, Kakuryu, and Kisenosato would have made Ozeki sooner, as would Takakeisho, Asanoyama, Shodai and Terunofuji (2nd time). Mitakeumi would be Ozeki twice over by now, and we would have had Ozeki Tochiozan and, very breiefly, Ozeki Daieisho, who would have immediately lost it.

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We need a minimum of two Ozeki on the banzuke, and to mangle an old quote, if it wasn't for bad Ozeki, we wouldn't have any Ozeki at all.

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20 minutes ago, Reonito said:

We need a minimum of two Ozeki on the banzuke, and to mangle an old quote, if it wasn't for bad Ozeki, we wouldn't have any Ozeki at all.

Exactly what I've been thinking; the 2 Ozeki Minimum is probably why the rules are full of escape clauses (Ozekiwake, e.g.). 

You would think that simple statistics would produce enough high-achievers.  With 42 rikishi fighting 15 bouts in a basho (or as @Gurowake would call it, "the future former 15-bout 6-basho era":-)), there are 315 wins and 315 losses.  If bouts were won by a coin flip, we'd get about 1 12-3 record, two 11-4 records, etc. with 2/3 of the rikishi receiving between 6 and 9 wins (or, to use a technical term, Juryo).

With the addition of human excellence, injury, and bad/good luck we get zensho yusho and M4's with 2-13 records.  As it stands now, we have A Yokozuna who's a threat to win every tournament with a cushion (Terunofuji), a high-performing threat when uninjured (Takakeisho), a solid workman who gets KK 75% of the time (Mitakeumi), maybe the return in a couple of years of a double-digit winning machine (Asanoyama), and ... ?  Where's my 3 Yokozuna-4 Ozeki basho?

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1 hour ago, Yamanashi said:

If bouts were won by a coin flip, we'd get about 1 12-3 record, two 11-4 records, etc. with 2/3 of the rikishi receiving between 6 and 9 wins (or, to use a technical term, Juryo).

The thing is, if they were coin flips, which it feels like most bouts not involving a few of the names above are, it's different rikishi who end up with those 11/12-win records each time, and there go the chances of an Ozeki run with the same guy putting up those numbers three times in a row.

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Just thinking aloud here, but maybe the thing to do with Ozeki is set a minimum target for every three basho, say 27/45 in any combination. We don’t want to make things overly difficult or else we risk there being no Ozeki, but also we want Ozeki to be Yokozuna surrogates when there are none, so need them to perform to a certain standard which 8-7 x 6 really isn’t. A target of 27 wins in 45 seems doable. It’s 9 wins a basho, which is above the bare minimum, but allows for some inconsistency of form. A rikishi who manages 8-7 one basho will need a 10-5 in another to make up ground. 30/45 may be asking too much.

Just to second guess myself though (I did say I’m thinking aloud here), I guess a weakness with this idea is that one bad tournament or kyujo puts massive pressure on them in the others. Say they went 0-0-15; in the other two basho they’d have to score 13-14 wins twice, which is Yokozuna form. Maybe a lower target of 25/45 is fairer. That demands at least one 9-6 in three, since three 8-7s would only result in 24 wins.

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1 hour ago, Reonito said:

The thing is, if they were coin flips, which it feels like most bouts not involving a few of the names above are, it's different rikishi who end up with those 11/12-win records each time, and there go the chances of an Ozeki run with the same guy putting up those numbers three times in a row.

Yeah, I know, my point is that somebody should do well each basho, even if it's not the same person each time.  Now, if you have actual talent and training, more than a couple of the 42 should do that well consistently.  During the period ~2013 - 2015, there were five Y-O-S-K with double digit wins basho after basho.  In 2021, it was 3, 3, 4, 2, 1, 3.  Juryo with envelopes.

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Seems the simplest answer is to just remove the arbitrary 'there must be two ozeki' requirement.

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On the topic of the lower division scheduling: Quite a few years ago I suggested that Ozumo could arguably use a new division in between juryo and makushita that roughly splits the difference between the two, or alternatively one could turn makushita itself into that division and have sandanme as the highest "trainee" division afterwards. With there being - in very broad terms - three main aspects that set juryo and makushita apart (schedule, status, salary), such a new division would feature one and a half of them:

- full 15-day schedule
- no status perks of being sekitori
- a much increased rikishi allowance

The difference between the juryo salary and the makushita allowance is about 13-fold, so it would easily be possible to set something in between (at about 3 or 4 times the current allowance) that would allow almost-sekitori to earn a decent bit of money in their careers while leaving the new payment tier still much below the proper sekitori salaries and not hurt the incentive to fight for sekitori status.

I'd put that hypothetical new division at 20 ranks, maaaybe 25 at a push; that seems to be about the practical maximum to have a 15-day pseudo-roundrobin schedule without major distortions particularly in the yusho race. More than that and you run the risk of having too many late-basho contenders to play them off against each other effectively. (In other words, the opposite problem to what Oortael pointed out, namely that a Swiss schedule of 9 days is too long for the current-size makushita.)

With the larger size than juryo, the banzuke making in that new division could be done a bit more fluidly, so that e.g. 2 to 3 ranks would be a typical 7-8 demotion, 4 to 5 ranks for a 6-9 etc. At the top you would have the possibility to directly compare the promotion contenders with the juryo demotion candidates due to the identical schedule length. At the bottom it would be possible to have more rapid exchanging of rikishi between that new division and the next one down than we currently see between juryo and makushita (so that this new third division doesn't simply become another major bottleneck), because the stakes associated with getting demoted out of that new division would be much lower and there's less need to protect incumbents.

Arguably the well-known "heaven and hell" distinction between the bottom of juryo and the top of makushita was a good fit in the old days, because it produced a sort of "up or out" system where rikishi didn't linger endlessly just short of sekitoridom, either with or without the occasional cup of coffee in the paid ranks. But today a lot of them do that anyway, in part because of the lower recruiting numbers creating less competitive pressure, but also because many more rikishi join at later ages than 15 now and it's much more accepted to actually keep competing at least until one's performance peak in the late 20's rather than quitting at age 25 or something because the breakthrough to juryo hasn't come yet. So one might as well make it official and treat the guys who are regularly fighting just below juryo as what they are: almost sekitori.

Edited by Asashosakari
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8 hours ago, Reonito said:

This is what something like that would have looked like in the past decade. Kotoshogiku, Kakuryu, and Kisenosato would have made Ozeki sooner, as would Takakeisho, Asanoyama, Shodai and Terunofuji (2nd time). Mitakeumi would be Ozeki twice over by now, and we would have had Ozeki Tochiozan and, very breiefly, Ozeki Daieisho, who would have immediately lost it.

Maybe in that parallel universe Daieisho took inspiration from his Ozeki promotion and is now Yokozuna Daieisho :-D

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10 hours ago, Asashosakari said:

On the topic of the lower division scheduling: Quite a few years ago I suggested that Ozumo could arguably use a new division in between juryo and makushita that roughly splits the difference between the two, or alternatively one could turn makushita itself into that division and have sandanme as the highest "trainee" division afterwards. With there being - in very broad terms - three main aspects that set juryo and makushita apart (schedule, status, salary), such a new division would feature one and a half of them:

- full 15-day schedule
- no status perks of being sekitori
- a much increased rikishi allowance

The difference between the juryo salary and the makushita allowance is about 13-fold, so it would easily be possible to set something in between (at about 3 or 4 times the current allowance) that would allow almost-sekitori to earn a decent bit of money in their careers while leaving the new payment tier still much below the proper sekitori salaries and not hurt the incentive to fight for sekitori status.

The idea of getting someone below Juryo a little extra each basho seems like a very good idea, though maybe it's not Darwinian enough for some.  However, I blanch a little at the thought of yet another division.  If you got your wish, but had to keep the same number of divisions (say, Makuuchi, Juryo, Makushita prime, Sandanme plus, Jonidan, Jonokuchi), where would your break points be for the lower divisions?

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11 hours ago, Godango said:

Seems the simplest answer is to just remove the arbitrary 'there must be two ozeki' requirement.

If you're going to do that, why keep the "There must be Two Sekiwake and two Komusubi" requirement?  There absolutely will be 2 Ozeki every banzuke for the same reason there are two of each of the junior sanyaku.  One assumes they'll promote someone with an unusually weak record if they need to in order to fill the spot, just like what can happen with the lower sanyaku.  Every Ozeki promotion in the last 100 years or whatever since they started promoting extra ones were for extra spots, while extra spots are somewhat rare for lower sanyaku. 

Edited by Gurowake

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8 minutes ago, Gurowake said:

One assumes they'll promote someone with an unusually weak record if they need to in order to fill the spot,

While I can't say for sure, it wouldn't surprise me in such a circumstance that the Ozeki would have no rank protection until they hit real Ozeki-promotable records.  Maybe they'd be a little leniant and start the rank protection if they just get 10 wins in a basho as an Ozeki.  But giving them automatic rank protection just because they were the best candidate at one particular time seems unfairly in favor of that rikishi.  If they have to demote him, they'll throw someone else up there the same way.  On the other hand, there are some things, like the 3-year jun-toshiyori period, that greatly favor rikishi who make Ozeki at least once, so maybe they'll make sure to have as few of these default Ozeki as possible.

Edited by Gurowake

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23 minutes ago, Gurowake said:

While I can't say for sure, it wouldn't surprise me in such a circumstance that the Ozeki would have no rank protection until they hit real Ozeki-promotable records.  Maybe they'd be a little leniant and start the rank protection if they just get 10 wins in a basho as an Ozeki.  But giving them automatic rank protection just because they were the best candidate at one particular time seems unfairly in favor of that rikishi.

When they've made such highly lenient promotions in the past, e.g. Kitanofuji after 8-7 10-5 10-5, they didn't treat them any differently than other Ozeki.

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