messi19

Without having thought about it too much I remember two henka Ama did in 2007 (both against Kotooshu in the Hatsu and Natsu basho)..even if it was one more than that I'd still believe "rarely" would be the appropriate term to use. It is also true that Ama used to henka a lot more when he was moving up the maegashira ranks so it may just be outdated as has been suggested here. All the more reason to change it. edit: make that three. He also unsuccessfully hanka'd Kotoshogiku in Hatsu if I am not totally mistaken. If we take away Hatsu though only one henka remains over the span of 5 1/4 basho. Unless there have been other ones of course.

I had seen this about a couple of months ago while browsing the Ama wikipedia entry and it also surprised me a lot. Go ahead and change it.

Shimootori still possesses great ability to finish a bout off via yorikiri whenever he obtains hidari-uwate. Robocop was on the defensive end immediately. Lower makuuchi is really exciting this time. :-)

I think that oshi-sumo guys such as Hokutoriki tend to very streaky, but when they do get on a roll they suddenly become extremely hard opponents to overcome for most of the makuuchi rikishi. I could never imagine Kasugao pulling off such a streak as Hokutoriki did when he came so close to actually taking the yusho. Hokutoriki also has got the ability to succeed by a well-timed pull-down more than most other rikishi. Therefore despite being much less technical than Kasugao I'm not surprised that Hokutoriki has enjoyed a more successful career. In other words: Very good oshi-sumo guys with very little else to offer will achieve more than outstanding nage guys with very little else to offer. Now of course some will rightfully argue that Hokutoriki can not be considered a very good oshi-sumo guy. :-)

I don't consider Kasugao an underachiever either. He does not possess much of an oshi attack at all and as far as yotsu-zumo is concerned he isn't too strong at it, is he? Very rarely do we see him producing a convincing yorikiri and it's not like he has been facing the sanyaku on a regular basis. His outstanding nage will make him stay in makuuchi for quite a long time though.

I think it depends on whether Asashoryu will survive this year in ozumo. If he does I predict a clean yokozuna sweep (6-0-0 evenly distributed between the two of them), if he's forced to retire for whatever reason I cannot imagine Hakuho taking every yusho. However with the two of them on the dohyo, I can't really think of a rikishi capable of overcoming them both.

I found a nice link to a relatively recent article mentioning hidari-yotsu/migi-yotsu specialists (it's in German though) -- here are their observations: Prefering migi-yotsu: Hakuho, Kotomitsuki, Roho, Tokitenku, Tochiozan, Takamisakari, Kasugao, Hochiyama, Kitazakura, Shimootori, Goeido, Hakurozan Prefering hidari-yotsu: Kaio, Tamanoshima, Futeno, Kisenosato, Kotoshogiku, Wakanosato http://www.sumofanmag.com/content/Issue_13...ocus_German.pdf Well, as this thread is bound to end up on the second page sooner rather than later, I will not keep editing if I see mention of other rikishi...these grip preferences are probably no news to most members anyway. (I am not worthy...)

First of all my apologies if this has already been discussed, but... ...I wonder how accurate are some of the descriptions on the sumo.goo site concerning the rikishis favourite grip and technique. For instance they've got "tsukidashi" listed as Ama's favourite technique which I don't agree with at all. Ama does use the tsuppari a lot, but usually to set something else up rather than actually finishing off the bout with tsukidashi. Strangely they've also got tsuki in Kotoshogiku's profile. I can only watch the bouts via the internet streaming and the videos on info-sumo.net and therefore do not have access to the commentators pre-bout comments about rikishi's favourite grips so I'd appreciate making a list of what mawashi grips/techniques the rikishi prefer. I'll get started (most are obvious, other based on mere observations so correct me if I'm wrong) Hakuho - hidari-uwate Toyonoshima - hidari-shitate/hidari-yotsu Shimootori - hidari-uwate Kaio - migi-uwate Ama - tachi-ai nodowa followed by nage/yori/oshi Dejima - oshi, sukuinage Tochinonada - hidari-shitate Kotoshogiku - gaburi-yori Kotooshu - hidari-uwate Shirononami - hidari-shitate This is not too much for now, I may add more later when I think of it and I hope others are going to fill in.

1. 1 (Y) 2. 2 (O1) 3. 2 (O2) 4. 2 (S) 5. 1 (K) 6. 2 (M1) 7. 1 (M2) 8. 1 (M3) 9. 2 (M4) 10. 1 (M5) 11. 1 (M6) 12. 2 (M7) 13. 3 (M8) 14. 3 (M9) 15. 2 (M10) 16. 2 (M11) 17. 1 (M12) 18. 2 (M13) 19. 3 (M14) 20. 1 (M15) 21. 1 (M16) 22. 1 (J1) 22. 1 (J2) 23. 1 (J3) 24. 1 (J4) 25. 2 (J5) 26. 1 (J6) 27. 1 (J7) 28. 2 (J8) 29. 2 (J9) 30. 1 (J10) 31. 1 (J11) 32. 2 (J12) 33. 2 (J13) 34. 2 (J14)

Happy new year to you, Bealzbob! If healthy I expect strong, possible 10+ wins performances from Homasho, Toyohibiki and Tamanoshima. I fear Goeido and Dejima will just fall short while Kaiho and Yoshikaze may find themselves in juryo when Haru rolls on as they will really have their work cut out for them with a pretty solid cast of rikishi surrounding them on the banzuke.

Pretty good predictions - the only one I don't necessarily agree with is Tochinoshin. Akiyutaka should bounce back very strongly in lower makushita too.

I like your way of thinking! Very unlikely he'll get the 13 wins in Hatsu, but with steady improvement perhaps by mid-year he'll be alternating 11 and 10 victories, by the end of the year consistently scoring 11 and thus slowly getting promotion within range of possibility.

I don't like his chances either. The upper half of makuuchi is getting constantly tougher making it pretty hard for anyone to make it to ozeki...11 victories have become so much to ask for...Toyonoshima, Kotoshogiku, Ama, Goeido, Dejima, Kisenosato, Baruto..these guys will be facing each other each and every basho and it's pretty hard to get more than 4 victories out of these matchups as it is. And then there is still the yokozuna duo and the ozeki..

Great job, yamaneko. I'd suggest Akiyutaka (formerly Tokitairyu) could be added to the Wall of Flame in the near future. http://sumodb.sumogames.com/Rikishi.aspx?r=6593

Let's put it this way: A year and a half ago I could never have imagined him beating someone like Hakuho twice in a row...not to mention a yusho-winning Hakuho, not the one of Aki 06 / Hatsu 07! He's arguably the most improved rikishi over that span and with further improvement I can see him squeezing out those 33 wins at least (whether or not they'd promote him with that is another question). Still, his all-out tachi-ai style always puts him in danger of opponents beating him by slightly side-stepping his initial charge. In this case, the pure speed of his tachi-ai can prove counter-productive making it hard for him to recover even if his opponent only manages a slightly superior grip in the process.. Asasekiryu beat him like this earlier this year in Nagoya. No doubt, it will win him more bouts than it will make him lose, but a loss of this kind here or there could prove the difference in his ozeki quest.

Different opinions so far - very interesting! The thing I noticed about Koryu ever since he made juryo is that he seems to be quite streaky. A 7-bout winning streak in March was followed by a 7-bout losing streak in the next basho. In Nagoya he won 9 out of his 11 last bouts and had another nice 4-bout winning streak to finish 2007 in style. As kaiguma pointed out, he can look very powerful when on such a positive streak. Hatsu will be his first basho from direct makuuchi promotion zone while Mokonami and Hakuba have had a shot, but ended up MK - Hakuba of course struggling with injuries at the time.

Mongolians Mokonami, Koryu and Hakuba are three rikishi pretty similar in terms of where they stand at this point of their careers. Koryu and Mokonami are almost the same age (23) while Hakuba is a year older. While Mokonami made it to sekitori earlier than the other two, he also has been the only one temporarily dropping back to Makushita for a short two-basho stint. I have not included Hoshihikari among the bunch as I imagine most would consider him capable of success in makuuchi while these three are no sure-fire candidates. Any bets on who will make it first or at all?

Interesting questions Hashira. I have been wondering about those too. With regard to considerations of previous rank: Recently there have been quite a few rikishi, who had proven themselves in makushita, dropping to the very bottom of the banzuke because of injury. I wonder if they are really then temporarily further down the internal beya order than a career jonidan guy when it is clear that they have only fallen because of injury.

It is a widely-known fact that the lower ranked rikishi (speaking in very general terms) have to do a variety of things including getting up earlier in the morning, preparing meals, cleaning tasks or having to endure long periods of Butsukari-geiko etc..As they move up the banzuke these tasks become less and other now lower-ranked ones take over. I was however wondering how exactly this system works. Is a sandanme rikishi clearcut "above" a jonidan wrestler in terms of hierarchy position? For instace a veteran spending all or most of his career in low sandanme/high jonidan will obviously initially be higher up the order in terms of hierarchy compared to a shin-deshi, but what happens if the former shin-deshi within a year has made it to high sandanme? Are roles completely reversed right away? Or does the experience of the veteran still count for something in terms of inner-beya hierarchy? Or is there not such a clearcut distinction made between /sandanme/jonidan/jonokuchi wrestlers? The fact that a jonidan rikishi was among those torturing Tokitaizan would point against it, but then again Tokitaizan had just joined the Tokitsukaze beya having only done mae-zumo and these are apparently always the very last down the order. Or is all of this something that we will just never know?

Chiganoura hopeful Masunoyama who was ranked at a career-high sandanme19 this basho unfortunately suffered his second career make-koshi at 3-4. As usual and that is reason for hope Masunoyama suffered all his losses by nage or twist/pulldown. The truly impressive thing in his case is that he has only suffered one career loss (in 8 basho) by what could be considered a true overpowering kimarite (yorikiri, oshidashi, oshitaoshi etc.). He does get beaten by nage a lot, especially with the uwatenage. I'd love to be able to watch more of him to find out if he is really that strong as it seems judging purely by the stats.