Jemuzu

Chris Gould’s video suggests one of the reasons Tamajiro had had it was that he was going to be evaluated alongside three other gyoji for the next promotion. So does that mean it’s not a shoe in that Yodo will be the next tate gyoji, and he’s up against Shotaro and Konosuke?

Wakamotoharu - Mitakeumi should have been a monoii too I think

Sad to see, my favourite rikishi since I got into sumo in 2016. His ozeki promotion run was sensational, I remember his bout vs Hakuho where Hakuho said 'I'll beat you at your own game', and lost. Really he did well to keep going for as long as he did, he hasn't been able to do 'his brand of sumo' pretty much since he got promoted to Ozeki and has been increasingly reliant on non-yotsu techniques (including the odd henka).

Kimura Yodo did the last one I think

Great call by Konosuke!

I think seeing the henka vs Takayasu made Takakeisho very tentative at the tachai

What they could do that I think would make sense is have Nagoya, Fukuoka and one other (presumably Sapporo) on rotation so that each got 2 basho every 3 years

Inosuke gets in the way again, possibly costing Takayasu the bout

I reckon they’d want the 33 given the 9 wins wasn’t at sanyaku

Even bringing back the Ozeki era pre match grunt didn’t work

How come Inosuke isn’t the gyoji?

A play off would have been the last thing he needed

Ishiura thoroughly deserves the technique prize

Absolutely. And while I agree with the decision to match up the yusho contenders in the final days, they could easily have foreseen this and had Shodai face Terunofuji earlier. In a way it would be a rebuke for Shodai - you’re not putting in an Ozeki performance so you don’t get to fight on senshuraku

Good news but will it be a serious event or more like a jungyo where some of the bouts are about as real as WWE?

Maybe in that parallel universe Daieisho took inspiration from his Ozeki promotion and is now Yokozuna Daieisho

I think anything like that is better than 8 wins 3 times a year

I think the answer is to make the criteria for Ozeki promotion more lenient, say 30 wins (obviously 33 isn’t a rule anyway) and take a more relaxed approach to a 9 win basho within the 30 or a result achieved outside sanyaku. The quality control against the promoted rikishi then failing to maintain Ozeki standards would be the 10 win requirement.

I would introduce what I’m going to call the ‘Shodai law’ to tighten up minimum required standards to retain the Ozeki rank. Alongside the current rules, Ozeki will be required to attain 10 wins at least once in a rolling 3 basho period, thus ending the ability to hang onto the Ozeki rank for years by getting an 8 win kachikoshi once every couple of basho.

Surprising the YDC didn’t recommend retirement after the 10-5s

I always wondered how he would fare against an average punter in the crowd. Maybe they could make a gameshow along those lines as his next career move.

They’re probably concerned about the lack of hinkaku shown by Chiyomaru on social media when he used to go round waking everyone up

It seems like we did… The 9th has been and gone and no news? Perhaps it was a storm in a teacup

That would make sense as a fallback if his comeback didn’t work out

Interesting that as for Asanoyama he tried to lie his way out of it at first. Not sure it would’ve made a difference if he had confessed all, given the zero tolerance approach to all drugs in Japan (except alcohol of course!).