Natsu 2025 discussion (results)

[hakutorizakura 673]

5 hours ago, Sumo Spiffy said:

But I don't remember Hakuho ever looking like "damn, I just got spanked" either.

I've absolutely no idea about Hak's look after getting spanked, but I remember the wry smile he showed after losing some bouts. At least that fits the "damn" part 

[Katooshu 3,416]

Onosato's dad was straight up laughing at it 

[rokudenashi 336]

23 hours ago, Tsuchinoninjin said:

What happened to Aonishiki’s skin? It looks like he fell off a motorcycle or something.

Becker’s nevus

[RabidJohn 1,944]

8 hours ago, Reonito said:

I'm prepared to wait a little longer before calling their ceiling. Even Atamifuji is young enough that there's a chance that he'll eventually live up to the very high expectations with which he came in. But obviously, everyone is free to set their expectations as they see fit.

Since Terunofuji's revelation that Atamifuji is uncoachable, I have little expectation for him. He's another Chiyomaru, IMO.

And I've already mentally filed Takerufuji's yusho along with Tokushoryu's until further notice.

[I am the Yokozuna 204]

From where I stand the only one who engaged with Onosato in a belt battle felled him with an ease and without breaking a sweat. I personally think that belt sumo is the yokozuna sumo. Oshi wears down the wrestlers faster. Hence I do not see Onosato as the dominating long term in the Onosato-Hoshoryu rivalry. I would even go and not promote him, as scandalous as it sounds. He did not perform well during the jungyo and during the official trainings so........Takanohana also waited for his promotion despite having had the record. 

Edited May 26 by I am the Yokozuna

[RabidJohn 1,944]

18 minutes ago, I am the Yokozuna said:

From where I stand the only one who engaged with Onosato in a belt battle felled him with an ease and without breaking a sweat. I personally think that belt sumo is the yokozuna sumo. Oshi wears down the wrestlers faster. Hence I do not see Onosato as the dominating long term in the Onosato-Hoshoryu rivalry. I would even go and not promote him, as scandalous as it sounds. He did not perform well during the basho and during the official trainings so........Takanohana also waited for his promotion despite having had the record. 

Having been one myself on multiple occasions, I don't mind a contrarian.

I also appreciate the beauty of yotsu-zumo over the brute strength of oshi-zumo, but you only have to look at the kimarite records to see that oshi has been in the ascendancy for some time. The kid plays to his strengths, which is exactly the right thing to do.

As for his results in pre-basho keiko and the soken, it seems to me that his preparation was spot on, resulting in an outstanding PB performance.
"He did not perform well during the basho" isn't contrary: it's denial.

Akebono was an oshi specialist when he got his rope, but he developed a decent yotsu game as a yokozuna. I hope Onosato will, too, because it is currently his weakness. I expect Nishonoseki will make him work on it.

All that said, has anybody heard anything about the judging department making recommendations?

 

[Jakusotsu 6,188]

35 minutes ago, I am the Yokozuna said:

Takanohana also waited for his promotion despite having had the record. 

Nonsense. Takanohana never had Onosato's record of two consecutive yusho before being promoted.

[Leoben 159]

2 hours ago, RabidJohn said:

Since Terunofuji's revelation that Atamifuji is uncoachable, I have little expectation for him. He's another Chiyomaru, IMO.

Atamifuji is clearly not part of the hot young prospects club. He had those two good performances from the bottom of Makuuchi in 2023, but it's been over a year and a half since then and in that time he's never gotten more than 8 wins. When I watch him I feel like he doesn't have much going for him other than being really big and heavy. Also if having three Yokozuna in his corner is not enough to light a fire under his ass and make him want to get better he doesn't have the mentality to be a winner. Terunofuji's comments practically make me dislike him. Imagine having all the physical tools and the coaching and just being like "nah I'm good".

[Yamanashi 3,988]

37 minutes ago, I am the Yokozuna said:

From where I stand the only one who engaged with Onosato in a belt battle felled him with an ease and without breaking a sweat. I personally think that belt sumo is the yokozuna sumo. Oshi wears down the wrestlers faster. Hence I do not see Onosato as the dominating long term in the Onosato-Hoshoryu rivalry. I would even go and not promote him, as scandalous as it sounds. He did not perform well during the basho and during the official trainings so........Takanohana also waited for his promotion despite having had the record. 

See my comments elsewhere.  While his bout history is short, his losing kimarite are illustrative: he gets oshidashi'd at the same rate a everyone else, but he's more likely to lose by certain kimarite vs the average [shitatenage (9% vs 2%), sukuinage (7% vs 2%) and uwatenage (13% vs 5%)].  He loses by yorikiri 9% vs 24%.  Hoshoryu (a throwin' guy) is 6-1 against him.

[Reonito 1,613]

1 hour ago, Yamanashi said:

See my comments elsewhere.  While his bout history is short, his losing kimarite are illustrative: he gets oshidashi'd at the same rate a everyone else, but he's more likely to lose by certain kimarite vs the average [shitatenage (9% vs 2%), sukuinage (7% vs 2%) and uwatenage (13% vs 5%)].  He loses by yorikiri 9% vs 24%.  Hoshoryu (a throwin' guy) is 6-1 against him.

Of course, the sample size on these is tiny, as he's only lost 34 times in his 9 Makuuchi basho! BTW, for a "non-belt" guy, he has 56 wins by oshidashi and 36 by yorikiri. For comparison, our prime current oshi practitioner, Daieisho, has 230 oshidashi wins to 27 yorikiri ones. For Hoshoryu, it's 73 yorikiri to 42 oshidashi. So I'd say Onosato has a pretty balanced game that leans oshi and will probably evolve toward more yotsu over time.

[Yamanashi 3,988]

17 minutes ago, Reonito said:

Of course, the sample size on these is tiny, as he's only lost 34 times in his 9 Makuuchi basho! BTW, for a "non-belt" guy, he has 56 wins by oshidashi and 36 by yorikiri. For comparison, our prime current oshi practitioner, Daieisho, has 230 oshidashi wins to 27 yorikiri ones. For Hoshoryu, it's 73 yorikiri to 42 oshidashi. So I'd say Onosato has a pretty balanced game that leans oshi and will probably evolve toward more yotsu over time.

I'm not going to go back and watch 40-50 bouts on video, so let's say I have an "intuition" about this: like Kotoshogiku, his yorikiri tend to be beltless, more like "shoveling" his opponent out instead of gripping the mawashi and "hauling" them out. Kotoshogiku had an astonishing 57% of his wins by yorikiri, but rarely had wins by throws -- not much belt action.  So far, Onosato seems more comfortable making throws part of his arsenal, and if his opponents can adjust to his shoveling style, he'll probably come up with a slider to augment his fastball, so to speak.

[Katooshu 3,416]

His effectiveness is more dependent on forward momentum, not whether he's pushing or grabbing an opponent - as long as he's moving forward he can do both of those well. He's not some standstill yotsu stylist obviously, but clearly he is not a one-dimensional oshi guy who you don't have to worry about getting hold of you or your mawashi.

Edited May 26 by Katooshu

[Ack! 486]

5 hours ago, RabidJohn said:

Since Terunofuji's revelation that Atamifuji is uncoachable, I have little expectation for him. He's another Chiyomaru, IMO.

And I've already mentally filed Takerufuji's yusho along with Tokushoryu's until further notice.

Atamifuji is the second coming of Ichinojo IMO.  Hak's advice for Takerefuji to take the yusho while he had the chance seems wiser every passing basho, but I still hold onto hope for him.

[Sumo Spiffy 621]

6 hours ago, RabidJohn said:

Since Terunofuji's revelation that Atamifuji is uncoachable, I have little expectation for him. He's another Chiyomaru, IMO.

And I've already mentally filed Takerufuji's yusho along with Tokushoryu's until further notice.

Being uncoachable can change, depending on why someone is considered uncoachable. The term makes someone sound arrogant, and maybe that's true, but he could also just be a dumbass and does a poor job of grasping what's being taught. Sometimes the light bulb clicks later.

As for Takerufuji vs. Tokushoryu... if you mean you don't expect him to repeat the yusho, ok, fair enough. But if you think he's going to flop around the division the way Tokushoryu did, that's a lot. I had to run these numbers for another reason, so I might as well drop them here: in seventy-five makuuchi matches, he's 7-19 against opponents who have been in the san'yaku at some point since his debut, and 41-8 against those who haven't. And one of those eight losses was to Aonishiki, who's about to get there. He's going to ping-pong in and out of the joi, not barely make it a couple of times and be doomed on the occasions when it happens.

The hope I have for Takeru at this point is that, even though part of his struggles this time seemed due to him getting thrown off his game because nothing was working, he also tried tactics I wouldn't have expected. If he was actually trying things rather than constantly falling into sub-optimal situations with no idea of what to do about it, we should see some improvement against the top guys. It might just be enough to be another Abi-style in and out of the lower san'yaku type career, but that would still be improvement.

[junsan 201]

Onosato has separated his wheat from the chaff of Atamifuji, Takerufuji, Hakuoho. The only real deal right now, and then some.

[RabidJohn 1,944]

@Sumo Spiffy The first scenario. I'll consider it a one-off until it isn't.

Thanks for running the numbers. Quite illuminating, and I concur with your assessment of his current potential. He's not lacking in technique or fighting spirit, but he seems prone to injury - and his skinny little ankles are worrisome. 

Same with Hakuoho - prone to injury. He came into makuuchi like a beast, but we all knew that strapped up shoulder would have a major role to play sooner or later. He looked broken again on Sunday.

[Reonito 1,613]

2 hours ago, Katooshu said:

His effectiveness is more dependent on forward momentum, not whether he's pushing or grabbing an opponent - as long as he's moving forward he can do both of those well. He's not some standstill yotsu stylist obviously, but clearly he is not a one-dimensional oshi guy who you don't have to worry about getting hold of you or your mawashi.

Much less one who is toast as soon as his belt is touched [cough] Takakeisho [cough]

[Reonito 1,613]

55 minutes ago, RabidJohn said:

Same with Hakuoho - prone to injury. He came into makuuchi like a beast, but we all knew that strapped up shoulder would have a major role to play sooner or later. He looked broken again on Sunday.

Honestly, Sunday looked like a clear matta to me, and he certainly seemed to think so, though somebody mentioned he may have sprained his ankle Saturday. And hopefully the surgery fixed the shoulder; it seems like it was the elbow giving him trouble this basho.

Edited May 26 by Reonito

[Tigerboy1966 1,539]

A couple of years ago, when very bored between basho, I looked at all the top wrestlers down to M9 in the last 50 years or so and compared their yorikiri pecentage against their oshidashi percentage by subtracting the second figure from the first. The most "oshi" figure for any yokozuna was -6.25 for Hokutoumi. The only other yokozuna with negative scores were Sadanoyama (-4.76), Musashimaru (-1.37) and Akebono (-0.33). Onosato is currently on -14.71, so he is a real outlier in terms of kimarite. Of course Takakeisho would have completely wrecked the comparisons if he had made the final step (-44.07).

[Reonito 1,613]

46 minutes ago, Tigerboy1966 said:

A couple of years ago, when very bored between basho, I looked at all the top wrestlers down to M9 in the last 50 years or so and compared their yorikiri pecentage against their oshidashi percentage by subtracting the second figure from the first. The most "oshi" figure for any yokozuna was -6.25 for Hokutoumi. The only other yokozuna with negative scores were Sadanoyama (-4.76), Musashimaru (-1.37) and Akebono (-0.33). Onosato is currently on -14.71, so he is a real outlier in terms of kimarite. Of course Takakeisho would have completely wrecked the comparisons if he had made the final step (-44.07).

Seems like "currently" might be the key here, I bet some of them (Akebono, for one) had much lower scores at the time of their promotion. In fact, if I did the query correctly, Akebono won by oshidashi 55 times before he became yokozuna, and only 26 by yorikiri. After his promotion, the numbers were 101 and 128, so he went from 2.1X more oshidashi to 1.3X more yorikiri.

[Tigerboy1966 1,539]

13 minutes ago, Reonito said:

Seems like "currently" might be the key here, I bet some of them (Akebono, for one) had much lower scores at the time of their promotion.

Yup. At some point, the great wrestlers have to have a plan B. If they haven't developed one before they get to the top, they need to get one to stay there. The Takakeisho (bless him) strategy was "Try Plan A, and if that doesn't work, try Plan A again". I don't expect Onosato to turn into a Mongolian-style belt-master overnight, but he has plenty of time to expand his repertoire.

[Octofuji 387]

4 hours ago, Sumo Spiffy said:

Being uncoachable can change, depending on why someone is considered uncoachable. The term makes someone sound arrogant, and maybe that's true, but he could also just be a dumbass and does a poor job of grasping what's being taught. Sometimes the light bulb clicks later.

This doesn't seem to be a new thing with Atamifuji. Isegahama oyakata said much the same when they were both on a talk show together at the start of last year.

Edited May 26 by Octofuji

[Reonito 1,613]

29 minutes ago, Octofuji said:

This doesn't seem to be a new thing with Atamifuji. Isegahama oyakata said much the same when they were both on a talk show together at the start of last year.

He's still only 22, over 2 years younger than Onosato, so maybe someone will get through to him yet 

[Kaninoyama 1,866]

6 hours ago, Sumo Spiffy said:

Being uncoachable can change, depending on why someone is considered uncoachable. The term makes someone sound arrogant, and maybe that's true, but he could also just be a dumbass and does a poor job of grasping what's being taught. Sometimes the light bulb clicks later.

I think it's far more this than being arrogant. If you listen to him talk there's not an arrogant bone in his body. I think he's just a relatively uncoordinated, bumbling kid blessed with an elite sumo body. He's doing is best but just isn't a natural by any means other than by his size. 

And while he's still only what, 21 or 22? and has plenty of time to improve, I agree that his limitations are apparent and I would not have him high up on the next-Ozeki list. Or even on that list at all. 

[Koorifuu 1,079]

2 hours ago, Octofuji said:

This doesn't seem to be a new thing with Atamifuji. Isegahama oyakata said much the same when they were both on a talk show together at the start of last year.

I remember that. The general sentiment here was of people being dismissive towards 'cranky old man' Isegahama.