Kokonoe's decline

[Seregost 105]

I've been following sumo without missing a single basho since Tochinoshin held the Emperor's cup in Hatsu 2018, but before, I used to watch it in Eurosport when Akebono and Takanohana started to fade and Asashoryu replaced them as the big deal, around year 2000. On that time, I liked Chiyotaikai a lot, and I was happy to discover after those years he became oyakata and the head coach from Kokonoe beya. But in the last two years or so, almost all the sekitori have retired: Chiyotairyu, Chiyootori, Chiyonokuni... and the ones keeping sekitorihood, like Chiyoshoma or Chiyomaru, or visiting it for some short time, like Chiyonoumi, Chiyonoo, Chiyoarashi or Chiyosakae, are quite old and probably won't bring the good days back . So I wonder myself...is Kokonoe such a bad trainer, he has bad luck, 0 scouting vision, whydo you think Kokonoe is not a powerhouse anymore?

[Tigerboy1966 1,220]

I think that "0 scouting vision" is the problem. All six of the stables current or former sekitori still active as of Aki 2023 were recruited prior to ex-Chiyotaikai's takeover of the stable in 2016.

[Asashosakari 17,637]

Strange takes so far. Chiyotaikai (via his high-profile active career) is almost certainly the reason so many talented rikishi were suddenly willing to join Kokonoe-beya from about 2005 onwards. Just take a look at who was entering the stable before that; you'll struggle to find many wrestlers that even reached makushita. He was also almost certainly the main coach of the stable long before he actually became Kokonoe-oyakata in 2016, given that Chiyonofuji was a Kyokai director from 2008 and had plenty of work to do in that role.

Anyway, Kokonoe is hardly the first stable to enjoy a golden generation prompted by the recruiting appeal of a recent yokozuna or ozeki, and then fall back into the status of "just another heya" one rikishi generation later. It won't be the last, either, because that sort of appeal always only lasts so long; kids going into professional sumo in the 2020s are just way too young to have seen Chiyotaikai as an active rikishi, so their idols will be the likes of Hakuho, Kisenosato, Goeido or Kotooshu instead. In 2035 we'll probably be talking about at least one of those guys and observe the exact same thing: They're no longer recruiting as well as they used to do right after their own active careers.

Edit: And to add, one increasingly relevant aspect today is having connections to important high school and university programs. Chiyotaikai had no amateur background, so he hasn't been able to rely on that for his recruiting. That trend favours other stables.

Edited September 21 by Asashosakari

[RabidJohn 1,425]

Kokonoe is still an active heya at least. It was a powerhouse when I started watching in the late 80s. Izutsu also had a bunch of sanyaku rikishi at the time, and now it no longer exists.

[Asashosakari 17,637]

7 hours ago, RabidJohn said:

Kokonoe is still an active heya at least. It was a powerhouse when I started watching in the late 80s.

And that's also a thing. We were talking recently about how Kokonoe-beya has been an almost ever-present in the top (two) division(s) for six decades, but one thing to keep in mind is that today's Kokonoe is almost an entirely different stable from what it was back then. After Chiyonofuji ousted Kitanofuji and forced his way into the shisho role back in 1992, basically the entire support structure of the heya left with Kitanofuji to the newly created Hakkaku-beya a year later. In a more just world, Hokutoumi would have eventually been the Kokonoe successor to Kitanofuji, and Chiyonofuji the one building up a new stable from scratch with his immense resources. In a way, the "real" Kokonoe-beya lineage continued in Hakkaku-beya after 1993.

So having tried to take a shortcut to success, but his oyakata colleagues refusing to play along, Chiyonofuji now owned a stable with a historically big name and a ton of rikishi (who of course weren't allowed to go to Hakkaku*), but very little else. And outside of Chiyotaikai's success he's the one who really didn't prove to be much of a recruiter and coach over the next 15 years, considering he was a bigger star than pretty much everybody else has been since then (bar Takanohana, perhaps) and should have had his pick of the litter as far as 1990s rikishi prospects go. Instead, merely average recruiting by the pure numbers over the next several years, and distinctly below average by quality.

So when we look at Kokonoe-beya right now and see it in danger of becoming "just another heya", it's relevant to note that its position was no better than that before Chiyotaikai's leadership period either.

* Outside of three acknowledged uchi-deshi of Hokutoumi, one of whom was the future Hokutoriki.

Edited September 24 by Asashosakari

[Seregost 105]

Hokutoriki, as I've read, started in Kokonoe but transferred to the new created Hakkaku beya just seven months later. The (maybe not so) curious thing is he coaches in Kokonoe today. Shouldn't be more logic to be in your shishos' heya?

[WAKATAKE 2,450]

3 hours ago, Seregost said:

Hokutoriki, as I've read, started in Kokonoe but transferred to the new created Hakkaku beya just seven months later. The (maybe not so) curious thing is he coaches in Kokonoe today. Shouldn't be more logic to be in your shishos' heya?

He may have been an uchideshi of Hokutoumi or recruited by him while Hokutoumi was a yokozuna, which explains why he would have transferred to Hakkaku at the time.

[Seiyashi 3,912]

1 hour ago, WAKATAKE said:

4 hours ago, Seregost said:

Hokutoriki, as I've read, started in Kokonoe but transferred to the new created Hakkaku beya just seven months later. The (maybe not so) curious thing is he coaches in Kokonoe today. Shouldn't be more logic to be in your shishos' heya?

He may have been an uchideshi of Hokutoumi or recruited by him while Hokutoumi was a yokozuna, which explains why he would have transferred to Hakkaku at the time.

Think the question is, if he was an uchideshi of Hokutoumi, why he went back to Kokonoe now. Well, maybe he found out he doesn't get along with the rest of Hakkaku and prefers to hang with moto-Chiyotaikai. I doubt the uchideshi relationship is so strong as to compel you to stay somewhere you really don't like.

[Gurowake 3,730]

9 minutes ago, Seiyashi said:

Think the question is, if he was an uchideshi of Hokutoumi, why he went back to Kokonoe now. Well, maybe he found out he doesn't get along with the rest of Hakkaku and prefers to hang with moto-Chiyotaikai. I doubt the uchideshi relationship is so strong as to compel you to stay somewhere you really don't like.

You're allowed to transfer heya as an oyakata.  As a rikishi, you go to whichever stable they tell you to go to.

[Itachi 367]

I'm under the impression that Kokonoe has a history of abusing younger deshi. I don't think that type of culture is helpful for building strong confident rikishi. I've been avoiding that heya in sumogames since I heard about the issues there.

 

[Hidenotora 63]

17 hours ago, Itachi said:

I'm under the impression that Kokonoe has a history of abusing younger deshi. I don't think that type of culture is helpful for building strong confident rikishi. I've been avoiding that heya in sumogames since I heard about the issues there.

 

Where'd you get that impression?

[ryafuji 798]

According to some threads I've seen on this forum Chiyonofuji had quite a bad reputation for the way he treated low rankers. There was the infamous story of Hokutenyu's younger brother who joined Kokonoe and ended up retiring early through Chiyonofuji's alleged mistreatment of him.