Adil

That's strange. Harumafuji gave Hakuho the chikara mizu when it should have been Aoiyama, because he had the previous match. Is it because Harumafuji got the freebie or is there something else?

It looked for a second like Terunofuji was going to do Cactus Jack's Butterfly DDT on Shodai. Oh no! Terunofoji limping badly after the match. He had to be helped by one of the attendants.

The great Ura debate: I enjoy his matches. He appears to be very strong and his unorthodox style has been successful so far, not to mentioned entertaining because of all the strange movements and throws. As for his future, who knows? I happen to be among those who don't see him as a sanyaku mainstay if he keeps fighting in his current style. I know I am new to sumo and perhaps the more experienced people have seen in him what a noob like me can't see. The reason I think he can't be a sanyaku mainstay with his current style is because I haven't seen anyone with a style like that go high up on the banzuke. Granted, there are not many who fight like that - currently there is only Satoyama and of course, there was Mainoumi in his day (neither of whom made sanyaku, by the way, except for that one tournament at komusubi for Mainoumi where he went 2-13). Why does nobody use that style? I think it is because (noob armchair sumo analysis alert) 1) it is very difficult and 2) even if you develop your technique to perfection, you will still have no chance against the best orthodox yotsu and oshi specialists. Perhaps Ura proves himself to be way better than Satoyama and Mainoumi. I hope he does. For now, I will just sit back and enjoy his matches. Even if he doesn't become a sanyaku or joi jin mainstay - damnit, even if he drops down to juryo - I will be following him. Sometimes I watch juryo for no other reason other than seeing Satoyama in action. It would be cool to see someone going against the big boys with the submarine style, so yes, I am hoping he makes it, but I don't think it is likely.

Thanks, Moti san!

musubi no ichiban = last bout of the day senshuraku = last day of the tournament

Now that makes a lot of sense!

This is interesting. I didn't know that they keep statistics about which leg a rikishi leads with. What does it tell us? About the kind of tachiai? The grips a rikishi employs with a left/right leading tachiai?

Could someone who can read Japanese be kind enough to tell me what these two graphics are saying? They were shown during today's broadcast. The only thing I can understand in the second one is that it mentions Soukukarai, with two columns underneath for left and right listing 20 and 10. The first one gives Terunofuji's shikona and is saying something about 13.5 and 6.5 seconds (bout lengths?). Thanks in advance. New Bitmap Image (2).bmp New Bitmap Image.bmp

Kisenosato is so injured that the only thing he is capable of is to stand up straight and walk backwards and out and he still keeps competing? I guess he is under pressure to appear on the dohyo because of his popularity. There was a time when Kotoshogiku was capable of it, but I refuse to believe he could beat Kisenosato like that with his gaburi-yori in his current condition. We have seen the 'power' of his hop-hop gaburis against Yoshikaze and Goeido this basho. There is a reason why he is already on 7 losses. I also wonder why Kotoshogiku felt the need to give that extra push in the end when Kisenosato was clearly out. It was definitely not part of any momentum or anything. Maybe it was out of anger at being on the verge of demotion from sanyaku altogether while his long time ozeki companion is at such dizzying heights.

The entire day 9 juryo broadcast. Satoyama's match starts at 15:50.

After such a crushing victory, I am starting to believe that Terunofuji has recovered completely from his injuries, unless he is chock-full of painkellers. Unbelievable power! I bet nobody else on the banzuke can do that: lifting a guy that heavy with a kime grip. He is so confident about the strength of his kme grip that he doesn't give a tosh if his opponent gets morozashi. In fact, his opponent getting a morozashi against him is more of an advantage for Terunofoji because that gives him the chance to employ that insane kime grip. For a moment, I was telling myself that this kind of kime lifting can't be good for his fingers because of the way he locks them together, but then I told myself to just shut up and drink in the beauty of a technique that I will be seeing very, very rarely (if ever).

We'll have to run a Shapiro–Wilk test to make sure the results really are normally distributed .

I meant to post this yesterday, but forgot. Myogiryu tried a very cheap tachiai trick yesterday against Ishiura. Myogiryu's right hand was down, with his left hand hovering a few inches above the dohyo. Ishiura had done the same. We see this position in every other match. Normally, both rikishi touch down with the other hand at the same time and charge at each other. It is normal for the timing of the two rikishi to be off by a split-second and there's a matta. Except the timing was not off in this one. Myogiryu deliberately caused the matta. He made a sudden movement with his hovering hand towards the dohyo but instead of touching down, he pretended to make a spinning movement with with his hand and pulled it up again. That's what caused the matta. I normally don't have a lot of time during bashos and I don't get the opportunity to watch the whole broadcasts with all the pre-match stuff. That's why I don't know how prevalent the practice of putting your opponent off with tachiai shenanigans is [Of course, I remember Kisenosato's excruciating antics back in 2012/2013]. I was happy to see him lose to Ishiura, although I generally root for him.

When they showed the replay from the top camera angle for the Hakuho/Endo bout, it seemed that Hakuho's fingers got stuck in Endo's mage when he made that last pull on Endo's head that sent him across the dohyo and out. I thought they were going to call a monoii. Granted, I only got that impression from that one angle (which I saw only once during the live broadcast), so I could be wrong.

And the wait for a new sumo game goes on...

Satonofuji. He's been for a while.

Forget the kitchen sink, Chiyoshouma threw the whole kitchen at Kisenosato!

As Rocks said, Kisenosato may have let up because he thought that Endo touched down. Unlucky for the big guy. Takayasu... Well... What can I say? He had just been promoted to Makuuchi when I first started watching sumo and slowly but surely, I started to like him. However, I refused to allow myself to become a full-fledged fan so soon because I have an incredibly bad record of supporting duds all my life. Decades before getting into sumo, my passion was cricket and I ruined many youngsters' careers by jumping on their bandwagon very soon after seeing a bit of potential. After cricket became too painful to support (anybody who watched the 1999 World Cup Final knows what I'm talking about), I went into football after a 6 year hiatus from the sporting world. As luck would have it, I immediately fell in love with Arsenal in 2005. I don't have to say anything about what has been happening to them in the last 12 years. Please everybody! Put that pillory and basket of tomatoes down! I am already the laughingstock of my family, so no need to flog a dead horse (literally). That's why I was cautious with Takayasu for over a year. However, I jumped on his bandwagon after he went 9-6 from M1 in the 2013 Nagoya basho. What I really loved about him was his absolute fearlessness. It doesn't matter who he is facing; he would always go in like a demon without an ounce of fear. The only other rikishi I can think of who is as fearless is Yoshikaze. With many other rikishi, you can sense a little bit of sheepishness or a change of body language against the big boys, but never these two. Kotoyuki also looks fearless , but in his case, it appears he is actually trying very hard to look like a tough guy and could come across as a bit of a brat, whereas Takayasu and Yoshikaze seemed like they don't have the word fear in their dictionary. As luck would have it, Takayasu totally stunk up the joint with some of the worst performances I have ever seen in the next two basho, going 5-10 and then an incredible 3-12. It wasn't just about the records; his performances were pathetic. It seemed like he didn't really want to be on the dohyo. I have since seen Ichinojo and Terunofuji go through phases like that. Although he had an OK Hatsu 2014 (9-6) after the two stinkers, the next two bashos were also not promising: 5-10 from M3 and then 6-9 from M8. I officially jumped off his bandwagon then. It was hard, but I persuaded myself that he's just another dud and there's no point in lingering on with him. After a so-so 2015, he has gone from strength to strength and now he is on the brink of ozeki promotion. Whether he will get it or not is another point. At least it is fun to see him get to the heights he deserves.

"I hear the mosquitoes in Hyogo are the size of Oorora." "...full of crab." Moti san, you just made my day. I can't tell you how eagerly I await your drring ring routines.

Haven't watched it yet, but from what I am reading here, Terunofuji did a henka. Seems like these two have their personal henka vendetta going against each other. A couple of years ago, Terunofuji henka'ed Kotoshogiku. Kotoshogiku got his revenge by henka'ing Terunofuji the year after that, and now this.

Thanks. I got it mixed up: He did it AFTER his loss against Myogiryu.

With the kind permission of the good people here, just one last point regarding the dreaded H word. After Kakuryu's first yokozuna yusho henkas, I have seen people doing henkas that I never ever expected: Hakuho (multiple times), Tochinoshin, Kisenosato (against Kotoshogiku) ... Let's not get into a discussion about Harumafuji, whose move has been discussed ad nauseam (about whether or not it was a henka, the second most discussed point after any henka after the obligatory "I'm totally fine / not fine with henkas."). So perhaps I should forgive Kakuryu. I know he has been losing a lot of sleep over my disapproval.

Seconded. I don't remember his henka against Terunofuji; as ryafuji pointed out, it was Kisenosato against whom he henkaed in the deciding match for his first yokozuna yusho. However, the henka didn't lead to a direct victory in that match. He executed a beautiful move at the tawara to win. I do remember flying into a rage when he did his two henkas against Kisenosato (there was a matta) because I felt (as I still feel) that coupled with his henka against Myogiryu in that basho (which did lead to a direct victory), it did something in my eyes to take the joy out of the occasion. At least I can enjoy this one!

I was waiting to finish my supper to make the very same point: Harumafuji was going for his 'Henka/Not a henka' there. And it's definitely not the first time that it has failed, as Benihana pointed out. Off the top of my head, I remember it failing against Sadanoumi (in a torinaoshi) and Aoiyama in the past.

What a funny fall from Tamawashi. Looks like his lower body just went limp. Kakuryu was trying a throw when Tamawashi started to topple forward. Kak was so committed to the throw that he didn't realize he was actually holding Tamawashi up at the very end. The look on his face as Tamawashi hit the dirt was priceless, like "What the hell just happened there?" By the way, as I have said in the past, Kakuryu has two modes: 1) the belt fight mode where he employs that insanely strong grip to the mawashi that is almost impossible to break; 2) the backpedal mode where he keeps jumping/moving sideways or backwards while swiping away at the opponent's arms. Mode 2 is not that good against guys like Tamawashi and Kotoyuki, guys who are very fast, strong and relentless moving forward.