harimakenji

This guy not only had a soon-to-be-famous shikona, he also had 18 consecutive losses in jonidan, after a 7-0 no less. Talk about the perils of overpromotion...Not sure he's the worst, but given that the most losses you can have without two 0-7's is 19 (6+7+6), he's a pretty good bet, at least for the period of time for which the DB has hoshitori available (last ~50 years). I don't know if this is the record or not, but Futatsuryu had 21 consecutive losses in makuuchi/juryo.

I think the henka had nothing to do with lack of hinkaku or wanting an easy win. Hakuho wanted to punish Kisenosato for his silly games and for his arrogance. He wanted to put him in his place.

Myogiryu has been quite impressive so far, he already can hold his own against the sanyaku opponents. After a little seasoning, he might be able to do it in 2013.

I know about the insulin case, but i can't help but think it was all the oyakata's idea, and Takanoyama couldn't do anything but play along (Naruto oyakata had a pretty nasty reputation, i don't think the deshi could talk back to him if he decided on something). There is no such thing as a healthy man who cannot gain any weightif he wants to, it's usually a symptom of an illness, but that's pretty unlikely here.

I suspect it's not that he cannot put on weight, he doesn't want to. The leanness makes him popular and 'special' in the upper ranks, if he would be around 120-130 kgs, he would be just another run-of-the-mill sumo wrestler.

Definitely not in my opinion. The expectation from an ozeki is AT LEAST 10 wins, and participating fairly regularly in the yusho race (i know, the current ozekis don't really meet these standards either, but another mediocre ozeki isn't really needed). Kisenosato as a sanyaku only had one basho with more than 10 wins in his whole career. That doesn't really indicate he'll be able to compete for the yusho. Also, as far as i know there is an unwritten expectation in an ozeki run of leaving a good impression in the third basho. I don't know when was the last time somebody got promoted to ozeki with a 10-5 in his third basho, but i bet it was quite a long ago.

I think the most simple solution for the current situation would be to give protection from demotion to the ozeki only if in the previous basho he could get at least 10 wins (the expected result from an ozeki). This would make the back-scratching a bit more difficult (as every ozeki would need every win they can get to be safe for the next basho), and maybe it would inspire the ozeki to perform more worthy for their rank (and sort out the unworthy ones).