wys

Damn, really wanted Takakeisho to win but had a feeling go into the playoff that Mitakeumi would take it for the reasons I stated earlier in this thread. Happy for Mitakeumi. Really hope Takakeisho is not injured. He is a big reason why I even watch sumo in the first place!

Don't get me wrong, Takakeisho is my favorite and no one is disputing the fact that he is a prodigy, having accomplished so much at only 23. years of age. But I wasn't comparing Takakeisho to Goeido/Takayasu when they were 23 years old. I am comparing them as of now. If Takakeisho is having so much trouble against these two, who are probably past their prime, then I wonder how much further he can take his style of sumo. I honestly see more potential in Asanoyma, if he could only get his head right and stay consistent. I give it to Takakeisho though for sticking to his style of sumo and the main reason I like him so much is not because of his sumo but because of his personal qualities (confidence, mental fortitude, humility, tenaciousness, etc.) that have allowed him to climb the ranks so quickly. But I am afraid to say that personal qualities can only take you so far. Sumo is at the end of the day a physical sport.

I love Takakeisho but though he will be ozeki in the next basho, he is not at the level of Takayasu and Goeido when they are healthy. Even against guys lower-ranked than he is who have more experience and who are more versatile, like Endo or Mitakeumi, I don't have the confidence that Takakeisho can consistently come out on top. My posts from this January have aged quite well unfortunately.

It is moot now since Takakeisho has been promoted already but it is silly to say that Takakeisho proved the JSA wrong. The powers that be could only go by the information they had at the time and they made the correct decision not to promote him in January. It still remains to be seen whether Takakeisho will be a strong ozeki. Don't get me wrong; I am a huge Takakeisho fan. But you can throw all the statistics you like at me, many of which are irrelevant to ozeki promotion, and I still believe that his lack of a belt-game is a glaring weakness. Other than Tochinoshin, the other two ozekis have Takakeisho's number. Not to mention Mitakeumi, who has consistently dominated him.

you the man mbovo. Will always support your channel. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I don"t know if Takakeisho is officially promoted yet but I hope he gets it this time, despite what I said in another thread. But I still have reservations about his sumo, so my statement is accompanied by an asterix. His weaknesses are so glaring, such as his inability to defend against anyone who has a grip on his mawashi, that it remains to be seen whether he will be an ozeki for the long-run. If he gets the promotion, it would be quite an interesting turn of events since it was always assumed that the King Tadpole Mitakeumi would attain it first.

I agree.I breathed a sigh of relief when he beat Takayasu today but I think he really needs to win his remaining matches to be promoted. Not so much the 13-11-10 progression but if he loses to Ichinojo, he is losing someone ranked much lower than he and if he loses to Tochinoshin, that would also look bad because Tochinoshin is not in great shape and banged up already. So yeah, Takakeisho unfortunately has his work set out for him this weekend. People on this forum are so focused on the number of wins but they lose sight of the fact that numbers alone are not sufficient and probably not even the most important factor. The committee needs to feel confident that Takakeisho is ozeki material given the quality of his sumo and his ability to demonstrate consistency in his matches. I am on the fence right now about his sumo to be quite honest.

I don't want to sound like I am patting myself on the back, but what the heck, I am patting myself on the back. This is what I said about Takakeisho back in January in response to member Word20's quote: "I think Takakeisho is Ozeki materrial. As we have seen in the 5 last basho's Takakeisho has had above 10 wins in 4 basho's with 9 wins in the 3rd basho and there is only a few rikishi that has done it as Takakeisho." If Takekeisho doesn't beat Takayasu today, even if he beats both Tochinoshin and Ichonojo, his chance of being promoted to ozeki is less than 50%. I still stand by my words from January.

I am super happy for Takakeisho. It seems like with another two wins, he has this ozeki promotion in the bag, though I don't want to jinx him. Every time he steps in the dohyo, he gives it a 110%, and his bout with Kakuryu demonstrated that, beginning with that full blast tachiai. On the other hand, I really feel for his pal Onosho. With each passing day, it seems like the gulf between their career trajectories is widening. I really hope Onosho makes a full recovery from whatever is ailing him.

I'm firmly in the camp that 10 wins in the next basho alone won't guarantee Takakeisho a promotion. The 33 wins I feel has been overemphasized in these discussions. It has never been a sufficient nor necessary condition to ozeki promotion. Even 11 wins in Osaka won't guarantee promotion if he fails against the higher-ranked guys, as someone else has mentioned. At this point, I feel like more experienced rikishis like Takayasu, Mitakeumi, and Goeido have already been able to exploit Takakeisho's weaknesses. Everyone has weaknesses and I think Takakeisho's are more glaring because of his limited repertoire. I also believe that it is faster to reach the limits of one's oshi-zumo and I wonder how much farther Takakeisho can advance his style of sumo to consistently challenge the higher-ranked guys. Don't get me wrong: Takakeisho has other great qualities such as his mental toughness, drive, quick reaction, intuition, and agility. And I think he will be promoted to ozeki at some point in his career. But I am anticipating with baited breath his performance in the next basho because, barring any injuries from the top guys, I don't yet feel he has close to a 50% chance of beating them. Open question to you all. What you do think Takakeisho can do to advance his sumo? For example, continue focusing on his oshi-zumo or add some other techniques in there. If the latter, which ones?

Understood. I agree that Hakuho failed to get inside (and stated as such). But your original claim was not that he failed to get inside but that Hakuho didn't know that getting inside is supposedly the best strategy ("Hakuho didn't figure out that that is the best way to deal with the Sekiwake") and that's what I was responding to, i.e., your claim about his epistemological state during the bout.

Yeah, I don't know what happened there either. So uncharacteristic of Takakeisho to retreat and lose so badly. Pure speculation on my part but maybe his heart wasn't in it at that point, given that he had the jun yusho secured and knew he won't be promoted to ozeki. Why risk injury by going all out? But at the same time, this would contradict the dignity and honor of the sport by not doing one's best to win. I guess sometimes rikishis have to weigh those two countervailing considerations. You're telling us that Mitakeumi and Goeido know something that Hakuho doesn't? I doubt Hakuho, who is probably the smartest and most intuitive guy in sumo, does not know how to exploit Takakeisho's weaknesses. Also, in that bout, it seems that Hakuho was trying to get inside repeatedly and repeatedly failed to get a grip. I think his loss is an indication of something else (heart, injury, mental lapse, nerves, confidence, etc.)?

Not sure which words I am putting in your mouth and I am not going to belabor this topic. I think I've written enough on this to make clear my reasons to your question, "why wait". Obviously this is a "subjective topic", to a certain degree,. And even if one can't "definitively say" whether he should be promoted or not, given the evidence or lack thereof, one would be more justified in not promoting Takakeisho to ozeki at this moment in time. The only strong point you make is that he won the yusho and the jun-yusho. But at the end of the day, I am going to go with my gut feelings that I mentioned before: I don't really feel close to being 50% confident that Takakeisho will beat the top ranked guys on any given day as things stand now. And even if Takakeisho does well in the next basho and gets a promotion, it doesn't provide any disconfirmatory evidence against the decision to not promote him after this basho. After all, the decision to not promote him is based on the evidence available as of now; one can't be faulted for not considering information that is not available. Having said all this, I hope Takakeisho kicks ass in the next basho and get his Ozeki promotion.

A better question is what is the rush? After only one tournament as sekiwake, you're telling me that you have enough evidence to confidently say that Takakeisho's sumo is better than sekiwake and is more like an ozeki? And as sekiwake in this tournament, can you really say that his sumo was so overwhelmingly good that he deserves to be promoted right away that the sekiwake rank is really beneath him? He lost twice to people ranked lower! I mean, just the fact that people on this forum are having this discussion/debate is anecdotal evidence that, taking everything into consideration, Takakeisho's performance and the quality of his sumo does not overwhelmingly support a promotion and I think that is what it would have to take in order to be promoted to ozeki after only one tournament as sekiwake. If he had beaten both ozekis in this tournament, it would have been a different story, but he didn't and that's how the story goes.

Again, you can't simply rely on numbers alone. We can use numbers superficially and make a case for anything, but is it a strong case? One has to dig a little deeper and think more critically. No one would put much weight, if any, on his performance as a M10 and as a M3, in making a case for ozeki promotion. For example, as an M10 in May 2018, Takakeisho didn't face anyone above M6 and he lost his matches to rikishi from M9 through M12. Would this be consistent with an ozeki-level performer? Let's move forward to July 2018 where he competed as an M3. Three of his 5 losses were at the hands of rikishi ranked lower than he was at M4, M6, and M7. Ozeki material? Not really. And with the last three basho, not wanting to repeat myself, but Takakeisho has not shown that he can consistently challenge the top guys across the board. When he walks in the dohyo against guys like Kakuryu, Goeido, Mitakeumi, or Takayasu (not mentioning Hakuho because he's in a league of his own, even with reported injuries) I don't have the confidence that Takakeisho can give these guys a run for their money. I don't get the feeling that the bout can swing either way. In fact, I feel with greater than 50% certainty he would lose. I hope the next basho can prove people like me wrong, since he is my fave, but as things stand now, I find it hard to justify an ozeki promotion.

Goes to show that sumo is really a young man's sport.

I thought they would have given it to someone with some belt-game or at least kimarites that display some superior skills.

Does anyone else find it odd that Takakeisho won the Gino-sho? His repertoire is limited to blasting his opponents out of the dohyo or slapdowns. I wonder what was going through the committee members' minds when they awarded this to Takakeisho.

Hmm, I understand your points but it's hard to see how they outweigh the arguments on the other side. I wish the best for Takakeisho but I personally still need another basho to see if he can consistently challenge the higher-ranked guys and the jury is still out. Takakeisho's style of sumo hasn't been that effective against the three rikishis I mentioned. I think this was probably what was going through the committee members' minds. And I think the quick loss to Goeido on the last day of the Hatsu Basho kind of sealed the deal. Also, I think Takakeisho's record is actually 2/5 against the Yokozunas in the past 3 bashos and one of his victories was against Kisenosato in November where he went 0-5 and dropped out of the tournament. Therefore, I wouldn't put that much weight on that stat. Also, yes Takakeisho has dominated Tochinoshin and Tamawashi, in the last three tournaments, going 5 and 0 against them. But given that Tochinoshin hasn't been that genki in the recent past because of injuries, the statistic doesn't seem as impressive as it looks and it's still hard to see how the 5 and 0 against these two outweigh the 1 and 8 against Mitakeumi, Takayasu, and Goeido over the same time period.

I would also like to add my two cents here on Takakeisho's ozeki run. As much as I love the guy, I agree with the decision not to promote him. As I mentioned yesterday in my post, he has not performed that well against higher ranked opponents. If we just look at his record against Mitakeumi, Goeido, and Takayasu in the last 3 bashos, he has only won one in nine bouts! I think he needs another basho to give the decision-makers more confidence that he is ozeki material and that he is competitive, or least has the potential to be competitive, against rikishi across the rankings. And of course congrats to Tamawashi. His streak of not missing a bout in his career continues to astound me, given the frequency of injuries in the sport. What's his secret?

But then again, Takakeisho also faced higher-ranked opponents on average. I can't wait to hear their decision.

You got to give it to him though. He called the Takakeisho-Okinoumi match perfectly.

So as it stands now, Takakeisho will at least get the jun yusho. That's another plus in his favor for the ozeki promotion. One of the worries I have though is that his record has not been that great against rikishi in the upper ranks like Mitakeumi, Takayasu, and Goeido, much less the remaining yokozunas. This raises the question whether he is really ozeki material. But maybe Takakeisho has entered a new level in his sumo and his entire past record may not be the most appropriate basis for a decision. But going by the last three bashos, including this one, he only has one win but seven losses against the three guys I mentioned. But it would be hard not to promote him as it stands now based on his performance of at least 33 wins, one yusho, and at least one jun yusho, and beating two yokozunas. What do you all think?

After reading many of the posts on here about Takakeisho's one-sided sumo, I feel like it might be a bit overblown. I know that I may be biased because he is my favorite rikishi, but I believe that Takakeisho has certain intangible qualities that are even more important than the ability to fight yotsu-zumo. If you watch his matches, the guy has heart, determination, and confidence. I would say these qualities more than compensate for his limited repertoire. I've never seen a match of his where he doesn't give a 110%. Compare that to a guy like Ichinojo, for instance, who is much larger and has the reach but doesn't have those same intangible qualities that Takakeisho has, and you see the difference in their ranking and career trajectory. What do you all think?

I personally don't think my man Takakeisho will be able to develop yotsu-zumo because of his physical limitations. There's nothing he can do about those short arms and he doesn't have the height to be able to effectively leverage any throws. As he has said repeatedly, he will be faithful to his style of sumo and try to take it to the limits. I don't disagree with his approach.