Old tsukedashi and Height/weight requirements scrapped

[Akinomaki 41,900]

Starting next year, the minimum height (167/165cm) and weight (67/65kg - lower for Haru only) requirements for new recruits will be mostly disregarded, those smaller than the limits take a fitness test to pass - the reason is the drop in new recruits (so everybody will pass the test). This will be the first time since requirements were codified in 1932.

Ms15TD and specially ms10TD will be abolished, all will be ms60TD like in the past (then for basically all from university - we'll see what becomes of the big 4 tournaments and their qualifications)

no more this:

o o

Edit: I see that Yubinhaad posted it already in another thread

Edited September 27, 2023 by Akinomaki

[Bunbukuchagama 998]

9 minutes ago, Akinomaki said:

Ms15TD and specially ms10TD will be abolished, all will be ms60TD like in the past

But why?

[Reonito 1,815]

5 minutes ago, Bunbukuchagama said:

But why?

Yeah that seems crazy, given the recent performances we've seen from those ranks. Why make them toil in Makushita longer?

[Akinomaki 41,900]

4 minutes ago, Bunbukuchagama said:

But why?

Maybe to avoid such hypes like with Hakuoho and Onosato - and have someone become sekitori in one basho

[Akinomaki 41,900]

Just now, Reonito said:

Yeah that seems crazy, given the recent performances we've seen from those ranks. Why make them toil in Makushita longer?

It seems they wanted go back to old traditions and have everybody to serve as tsukebito for a while

[Bunbukuchagama 998]

15 minutes ago, Akinomaki said:

Maybe to avoid such hypes like with Hakuoho and Onosato - and have someone become sekitori in one basho

Why would they want to do that? Hyped up debutants draw attention to ozumo and increase its popularity. And what is the benefit of letting experienced college rikishi steamroll Makushita opponents another couple of times?

Edited September 27, 2023 by Bunbukuchagama

[Akinomaki 41,900]

Sponichi was the only to mention it  as "and also ..." today, so we'll get some more information later.

They definitely are becoming less and less generous - the extended 2 year validity of the qualifications was scrapped and now the special bonus for tournament winners reduced - and the extra special for the best abolished: the All Japan plus another tournament.

No mention of sandanme tsukedashi, so they likely remain and only the winners get treated differently, any win of the big 4 is the same from next year on, no special opportunity at the All Japan.

But this year we should still get the ms15TD and maybe the last ms10TD - the corporate championships already took place, the kokutai is in a few weeks and then before the basho the student championships and after the All Japan.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Akinomaki

[Reonito 1,815]

It's not like they're swimming in new recruits; I don't get the logic for making entering ozumo less attractive for the strongest prospects 

[Akinomaki 41,900]

51 minutes ago, Reonito said:

Yeah that seems crazy, given the recent performances we've seen from those ranks. Why make them toil in Makushita longer?

... or maybe they want them all to have graduated from sumo school before they become sekitori, teach them all the NSK principles

[Akinomaki 41,900]

1 minute ago, Reonito said:

It's not like they're swimming in new recruits; I don't get the logic for making entering ozumo less attractive for the strongest prospects 

The strongest prospects will likely join anyway, they need more to fill the lower ranks

[Tsuchinoninjin 1,291]

9 minutes ago, Akinomaki said:

The strongest prospects will likely join anyway, they need more to fill the lower ranks

Change back to allowing something more than allowance pay for makushita!!

[Gurowake 4,164]

If there were a string of Ms15TD entries that managed to utterly fail, I could understand wanting to not continue to give them such a high entrance rank, but if anything it's the exact opposite.  Yago is the only recent Ms15td I can recall that's been below his starting rank for multiple tournaments without being injured (Mitoryu only was for one), but he still made Makuuchi and has only fallen back to the starting level since then.  People that came in under Ms15TD have already had full careers and retired to be Oyakata by now (Takekaze at least, not sure if there are others, though you can count Chiyotairyu if you ignore the last part).

The only thing that I can see that's happened recently is that there are more foreigners who don't qualify for Japanese Shusshin that are winning these tournaments, but that started back in 2014 with Ichinojo.  Maybe Ichinojo's weird retirement prompted some discussion on this, in that he didn't get enough time in the lower ranks to be suitably humble?  It's not going to lengthen things by more than 2 tournaments on average for the top prospects though, and it's still possible to reach Juryo in 2 tournaments (as was done by Miyabiyama) which was the minimum that had happened until Ochiai.

If they're going to go backwards on this, they might as well do away with it entirely.

 

[Tochinofuji 405]

I almost thought this was a April Fools post that I missed and was necroposted. 

Doing away with the height and weight requirements makes sense to me, as those always seemed somewhat arbitrary and a farce at any rate. But the msXtd perks for a strong amateur career? I can't see the reasoning there at all - though I'm sure there's some (even if poorly thought out).

[Reonito 1,815]

1 hour ago, Akinomaki said:

The strongest prospects will likely join anyway, they need more to fill the lower ranks

I'm not so sure ... some will, but some might not. Clearly Ochiai viewed Ms15TD entry as important enough to spend a year in corporate sumo to obtain it. I can see someone looking at two extra tournaments in makushita and saying, "no thanks." Maybe the goal is to weed out anyone who thinks like that, but it's not going to help grow the sport in an increasingly more modern society with other options.

[Bunbukuchagama 998]

24 minutes ago, Tochinofuji said:

I almost thought this was a April Fools post that I missed and was necroposted. 

Doing away with the height and weight requirements makes sense to me, as those always seemed somewhat arbitrary and a farce at any rate. But the msXtd perks for a strong amateur career? I can't see the reasoning there at all - though I'm sure there's some (even if poorly thought out).

They need more midget tsukebito, not more stars. 

[Matsudō 10]

I wonder whether this will have the effect of reducing the number of early-career injuries to hot prospects. I can definitely see where giving them an extra couple of 7-bout tournaments against lower opposition would help them ease into ōzumo without something like what happened to Hakuōhō.

[Bunbukuchagama 998]

Just now, Matsudō said:

I wonder whether this will have the effect of reducing the number of early-career injuries to hot prospects. I can definitely see where giving them an extra couple of 7-bout tournaments against lower opposition would help them ease into ōzumo without something like what happened to Hakuōhō.

Hakuoho was injured since high school. He just has bad shoulders. 

TD rikishi are already mature, their bodies don't need any "easing".

[Yarimotsu 645]

My theory on the Ms TD is the kyokai wants hot prospects joining sooner, rather than waiting around for a 'better' qualification and potentially making other decisions in the meantime, or chasing an amateur win that never comes. If you view it from that perspective I think it makes sense. Unless I'm missing something?

[Tigerboy1966 1,670]

If they want to remove some of the barriers that prevent talented young men entering the sport they should start with the one-foreigner rule.

[Jakusotsu 6,428]

19 minutes ago, Tigerboy1966 said:

If they want to remove some of the barriers that prevent talented young men entering the sport they should start with the one-foreigner rule.

But do they really want even less natives among the top rankers?

[Akinomaki 41,900]

16 hours ago, Tigerboy1966 said:

If they want to remove some of the barriers that prevent talented young men entering the sport they should start with the one-foreigner rule.

They have doubled the barriers for foreigners, having them wait another half year before they start, in addition to the one basho their career gets delayed anyway. Could well be that they want to delay the tsukedashi main careers because it can be expected that half of them will soon be foreign. We had after Ichinojo Mitoryu, Oshoma and now this year last year's student yokozuna Choijil (I haven't seen the shikona yet).

On 01/09/2023 at 12:06, Akinomaki said:

With only 1 year now for the tsukedashi validity, the foreigners are under real pressure: they have to stay at least 6 months in a heya before a shindeshi-kensa, so they have to join before graduation to be at the Aki basho kensa - the student yokozuna TD qualification expires just when the Kyushu basho shindeshi kensa will be, corporate and kokutai yokozuna before that

Edited September 28, 2023 by Akinomaki

[dingo 1,493]

I looking forward to seeing a 150cm 50kg kid being flattened by someone triple his weight. 

[Akinomaki 41,900]

5 hours ago, Bunbukuchagama said:

Hakuoho was injured since high school. He just has bad shoulders. 

TD rikishi are already mature, their bodies don't need any "easing".

No, they don't have the body of a pro and are more prone to injury. Oyakata and also rikishi often emphasize that at first they should get the body of a pro. Nishonoseki is especially keen with that, as we can see with Onosato going much slower than what he could do. Miyagino so far crippled many prospects because he didn't care enough about that.

[Akinomaki 41,900]

I hope they don't plan to introduce a lightweight division with extra banzuke

[Yarimotsu 645]

27 minutes ago, Akinomaki said:

I hope they don't plan to introduce a lightweight division with extra banzuke

Is this a legitimate worry? I haven't seen anything to indicate there's support for that