Aki 2025 discussions (results)

[Leoben 178]

1 hour ago, Octofuji said:

Hoshoryu weighs about the same as Hakuho. Granted he looks smaller.

For some reason I thought Hakuho fought at 165 but I just checked and you're right. He was 4 cm taller and only 3 or 4 kg heavier. If you put them side by side I would have guessed the difference was much bigger. 

Asashoryu was shorter and lighter than his nephew, but he looked a lot thicker and he had power in spades. I'd bet on him to beat any of today's big guys in a strength contest, with the exception of Onosato.

Edited September 22 by Leoben

[Jakusotsu 6,428]

It's all about presence, not size. Kotooshu never looked the size he actually was.

Do you remember Myogiryu to be 188cm tall?

Edited September 22 by Jakusotsu

[Obana 376]

ヴィヴィアン佐藤 Vivian Sato contributed some color to the day 9 festivities.

[Oskanohana 381]

14 hours ago, Jakusotsu said:

Losing by yorikiri against Tomokaze of all people? Quite pathetic, Mitakeumi...

edit: hmmm, they called it oshidashi - for stats sake, I guess

What's funniest to me is that Tomokaze defeated Mitakeumi in Mitakeumi's style and yesterday Tomokaze lost to Ryuden in Tomokaze's style.

By the way, who's that dashing young prospect that's dropping maegashiras left and right from M11? Maybe he can win a yusho and for sure he has ozeki potential.

Oh, and in another topic, Atamifuji, by stumbling clumsily forward, failed to get a 9th yorikiri in a row from the start of the basho (irrespective of win or loss). I had a very nice post with lost of links to queries explaining the records in MU and juryo but the freaking forbidden error crap from the forum defeated me. Suffice to say the MU record streak from the start is 9 while juryo's is 13 by Chiyo(no)o. Most yorikiris in a single basho (win or lose, no streak required) is 13 by a bunch of guys. Maybe I'll post the queries in the trivia bits thread if I find the patience and it doesn't give me the shitty error.

P.S:Now the forum doesn't even allow me to put a single hyperlink on. FFS

[Reonito 1,815]

Tochinoshin won by yorikiri 12 times in his 15-0 juryo yusho; Kitanoumi managed 12 in Makuuchi, Kotokaze did as well if you count a playoff.

[lackmaker 458]

12 hours ago, Jakusotsu said:

Statistical outliers perhaps? You can't deny he got quite lucky in some of those wins.

Mixture of luck and adjusting to situations?

[RabidJohn 2,085]

Wow, both sekiwake at 5-5 on day 10 wasn't on my bingo card. No easy route to KK for either of them from there.
And they both lost today to guys against whom they have dominant h2h records. It felt like Hiradoumi was due a win against Wakatakakage, and I was impressed by Kotozakura's calm patience, waiting for his opportunity against Kirishima.

Ok, I've stopped being concerned about Hoshoryu's 'premature/too easy' promotion. Injuries have made him very on or off this year, but when he's on he meets the standards. I'm keen to see how clean he can keep his scoresheet in the last third, and I'm really looking forward to the senshuraku bout between two yokozuna in good form.

[Asashosakari 20,330]

Even if WTK somehow goes from 5-5 to 10-5 now, I think Takadagawa will find it hard to put his desired "the sumo itself was great so it doesn't matter that the numbers are merely okay" spin on this basho. But it's probably academic anyway, what with the top 3 all still to come as opponents.

[RabidJohn 2,085]

In the highly unlikely event that Wakatakakage finishes 10-5, he would have beaten all three of the in-form Y/O. Then I wouldn't rule out the combination of recency bias, Takadagawa being as pushy as he was with Hoshoryu, and maybe a desire to have a nice 2 by 2 sanyaku for London being enough...

But I'm now looking at it from the point of view that he will need to beat at least one just to secure a KK.

[Jakusotsu 6,428]

Time for an early jinx:

The last time we had a 14-1 Yokozuna playoff was between Asashoryu and Hakuho in 2009 Hatsu and Aki. The uncle lost both regular senshuraku bouts but prevailed in both kettei-sen, so it's a good omen for the nephew.

[The Fat Cyclist 39]

15 hours ago, Obana said:

ヴィヴィアン佐藤 Vivian Sato contributed some color to the day 9 festivities.

Thanks. I did wonder

[Tsuchinoninjin 1,291]

2 hours ago, Asashosakari said:

Even if WTK somehow goes from 5-5 to 10-5 now, I think Takadagawa will find it hard to put his desired "the sumo itself was great so it doesn't matter that the numbers are merely okay" spin on this basho. But it's probably academic anyway, what with the top 3 all still to come as opponents.

A lot can be forgiven if you utchari a yokozuna 

[Gospodin 273]

Hakuoho couldn´t do an effective ottsuke defense with his right arm, securing Aonishiki a strong inside grip.

[Sumo Spiffy 672]

2 hours ago, RabidJohn said:

In the highly unlikely event that Wakatakakage finishes 10-5, he would have beaten all three of the in-form Y/O. Then I wouldn't rule out the combination of recency bias, Takadagawa being as pushy as he was with Hoshoryu, and maybe a desire to have a nice 2 by 2 sanyaku for London being enough...

Those will be nice wins, but will that lead them to ignore who he lost to? I doubt it.

[Kintamayama 47,440]

A bit more on Ura's running for tsuyuharai. If you watched my video you would know what I am referring to..

At Houshouryuu's Yokozuna dohyo-iri, Ura replaced Meisei as the tsuyuharai. This is because Meisei's bout was scheduled to be the fourth after the dohyo-iri, which was pretty close to the dohyo-iri time-wise. Eventually, Meisei was beaten by Ryuuden, resulting in his seventh loss. "I think everyone is in the same condition," he said without saying much. Meanwhile, Ura pushed out Rouga for his seventh win. Regarding the tsuyuharai, he said, "It's my first time. I've been a tachimochi at hair-cutting ceremonies and things like that, but it's nerve-wracking. I'm kind of shaking... I can feel the Yokozuna's spirit..."

Edited September 23 by Kintamayama

[Seseragi 16]

I feel like Gonoyama has been better in matches than his 0-10 implies. He has the pushing power (see today) but has a hard time finishing them off. If he can't win against Tamawashi tomorrow however then I don't know who he is beating.

Seems like a reoccuring theme is he falls to Maegashira 8 or below and does very well. He then jumps up to the joi and gets rinsed by sanyaku early which puts him on the back foot for the rest of the basho and falls again. 

[Sumo Spiffy 672]

26 minutes ago, Seseragi said:

I feel like Gonoyama has been better in matches than his 0-10 implies. He has the pushing power (see today) but has a hard time finishing them off. If he can't win against Tamawashi tomorrow however then I don't know who he is beating.

Seems like a reoccuring theme is he falls to Maegashira 8 or below and does very well. He then jumps up to the joi and gets rinsed by sanyaku early which puts him on the back foot for the rest of the basho and falls again. 

I picked him to beat Takayasu, and the start of the match was exactly what I expected. What I didn't expect is that he would actually lack the power to finish Papa Bear off. Between that and getting rinsed by Ichiyamamoto, it looks like Gono's lost a noticeable amount of juice. Can't see a particular point of struggle, but if he has lost power, that's usually indicative of some kind of injury. And given his build and fight style, I can't shake shadows of Takakeisho in the moment.

[hakutorizakura 697]

Gonoyama is the new Hokutofuji, win-loss record doesn't reflect the effort on the dohyo... 

[Fashiritētā 215]

Just now, hakutorizakura said:

Gonoyama is the new Hokutofuji, win-loss record doesn't reflect the effort on the dohyo... 

The most powerful makikochi in ALL of Sumo.

[Akinomaki 41,892]

Rare 2nd replacement by Ura - this time his debut as tsuyuharai, replacing Meisei, from the same heya as Hoshoryu. Meisei had his bout as 4th, allegedly too soon after the yokozuna dohyo-iri - and also with a bit more time to prepare he lost it. Hoshoryu's dohyo-iri was the first, so this reasoning is likely just an excuse, those in the dohyo-iri 2nd part and the 1st bout have much less time to prepare, especially when there's no yokozuna at the basho.

o o

Ura had performed as tachi-mochi at danpatsushiki and other events and only had his honbasho debut earlier this basho, tsuyuharai was an absolute first for him, and he won his bout. Maybe he'll become a regular, Meisei is heading further down.

Edited September 23 by Akinomaki

[dingo 1,493]

The yokozuna did a quick and faultless job today. It's quite refreshing to have two dominant yokozuna again, cleaning up the field. We'll see soon who ends up on top this time. 

After a difficult start Oho has been slowly collecting wins and at 6-4 might get his kachikoshi yet. Not bad, especially considering he didn't look good on the first few days. But he did win against Aonishiki which these days is quite a feat for a maegashira. 

Having pushed Tamawashi down, Abi rushed over to him as if afraid he'd accidentally broken an ancient relic. Well, Tamawashi is the closest that makuuchi has to one. Fortunately looks like the veteran was ok. 

Aonishiki just totally neutralised Hakuoho, not letting him get any sort of attack going. The Ukrainian doesn't look huge, yet his grip is deceptively strong. But as Gospodin said, Hakuoho couldn't use his arm well. 

In the end Wakatakakage is quite far from ozeki promotion, ending up with 5 losses in 11 days. Just couldn't get into the shape he wanted for the third basho in a row. Too many avoidable losses, but that's why the 33 wins requirement is there. 

Kotozakura showed some smart sumo today. He waited for the exact right moment when Kirishima went for the makikae and timed his forward charge to perfectly match that small window of opportunity. Outstanding win against a tough opponent I'd say, though Kirishima has been losing momentum. 

[Kaninoyama 1,882]

5 hours ago, hakutorizakura said:

Gonoyama is the new Hokutofuji, win-loss record doesn't reflect the effort on the dohyo... 

The effort is certainly there, but he's very one-dimensional in an Abi sort of way, but without Abi's evasiveness. If he's lacking even a little of his explosiveness, he's in for a rough time in upper Makuuchi. 

[BigKahunaMan 18]

Abi-Tamawashi ending looked a bit out of nowhere. I had to rewind it a couple of times to see if it was slippiotoshi or something, but it looked fairly normal. Maybe his back was acting up.

[Hankegami 598]

Trial reply - I have been on blacklist since yesterday, right after after I posted my thanks to Kintamayama for his video. Must have been too much of an insult for the server, I guess. If this goes through, I' ll EDIT this post with my actual reply. Stay tuned.

------------------------ Yay!

Good Day 10, everyone! After a few more days off, I'm finally back for the final sketch! Now, my usual thoughts.

During the first half of the tournament, I predicted that Mitakeumi and Atamifuji wouldn't have performed this bad - they looked like they were moving satisfactorily. Well, I was damn wrong. Them both just lost steam, and do not make that much effort anymore. I'm ready for getting my feelings hurt badly 

Anyway, Mitakeumi surprised me in a certain way, today - he successfully performed a henka!  I mean, last times he tried he just went down like a sack of potatoes. He's putting some clear effort now - although this means he's planning to use it more and more in the future. Finally a clear counter-plan for his usual "Weak 2" Mitakeumi behavior!

Going on, the pool of win-less rikishi has shrunk down today with Abi's win against Tamawashi. Didn't expect it, considering how bad his arms have looked this tournament. No cigar yet for Gonoyama, though. However, since he's likely going to get the other worst performers in the tournaments in the coming days, I think he will get his first win rather soon.

Now, time to burden you with my usual paragraph praising Aonishiki because yes. Hakuoho struggled and waved and swung and threw all he could, but my boy accompanied him out unfazed. Sure, Hakuoho had that bad packaging on his arm, but it was still a nice display of strength from Aonishiki. However, with Wakatakakage losing to Hiradoumi (his first loss ever against him! Well played, Waka) we can be virtually sure that no standard Sekiwake spot will open up for Kyushu. I mean, WTK still has an outside chance to get 10-5 and put his Ozeki candidacy up on the table by winning against Onosato, Hoshoryu, and Kotozakura, but... It looks unlikely from how he is performing now. This means that Aonishiki must win 3 more to hit 11 and force a S2w slot to be opened for him. Certainly not impossible, but not a cakewalk either.

Finally, the big three. Kotozakura surprised me positively. He's infamous for being Kirishima's main source of freebie wins ( 7-15 ), and yet he managed to counter him and capitalize on a badly timed makikae from Kirby.  Always a good look when you win against opponents who know your number. Onosato keeps being stupid strong. Hoshoryu must really keep his one point cushion win the longer he can, because I cannot see whoever can bring Onosato down in the next few days. Hoshoryu himself today vindicated his recent lucked out wins with a dominant performance against Wakamotoharu. Magnificent show of technical skills, true peak Hoshoryu.

Edited September 24 by Hankegami

[Morning 99]

Next step for Ura: replacing the yokozuna at the dohyo-iri. :)