Tetsuzukiyama

You could see the blood trickling down Futeno's arm after his bout today, that was pretty cool.

No kidding. Well, as much as it burst the Hakuho bubble, for now, he got beat pretty cleanly by Tochiazuma and the tournament is looking better for it.

14-12-12 or 13 maybe but probably moot. He's got some extra competition for promotion now but the four way race between A-K-H-T could turn up some 11 or 12 win Yushos in the near future so who knows?

I had new girlfriend sitting with me when I watched the latest Hack-Koto bout for the first time. She couldn't figure out why I was leaping around the room.

I think we're seeing a different Hakuho now that he's put the weight on a bit and isn't worried about being pushed around. His footwork has always been great, he's had time to experiment and now he's proving that he's got what it takes to stand toe to toe with Asashoryu. Straight, right up there, right in his face, gonna beat that son-of-a-gun 'cause I'm a bigger dude Sumo. Love it. This has never happened to the Yokozuna, it's true! Kotooshu is still a relative newcomer and is still adjusting to the whole moving forward idea, after all. He's going to be riding pretty high after this basho and will have double the incentive to come out gunning next time. Otherwise I think Asashoryu is relatively safe until Baruto comes a-knockin', but two bigger rivals are two too many I'm sure.

Amen to that. Now I'm just wondering how far over the Kyokai is going to have to bend to explain making Tochiazuma a Yokozuna with .. 10 wins? It's gonna happen.

This picture was begging for a good caption, I'm glad you nailed it. Still laughing. No pictures of Kotooshu hoisting poor Futenoh with his bad leg? That sucker was airborne.

Nah, Little Orphan Ama's gonna have him figured out. He might even retire the guy.

Holy damn! My eyes! If you can't use the flash, brace the camera against a post or something! Or, put it on 10 second timer and set it down. The pictures are really interesting though, I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Ah, that's 9pm here, no wonder I hadn't have noticed. I never thought the timing through I guess. How long does it take them to post for Senshuraku? Not long after 6pm I'd imagine?

Wha! That rocks. Now how could Ama Yusho... Now I'll try to find where you learned this. I thought they only scheduled two days at the beginning.

I know! Fantastic!

The Magic Slipper Theory, eh? Alright, I'll buy it. It looked like a backwards shoelace trip to me. I'm paying more attention to the gyoji's acrobatics since, that's for sure. There've been a few close calls this basho where the little christmas trees really had to scamper.

Ticking off names here, Ama seems to be getting pretty close to a Yokozuna match-up in the next few days. Going by straight ranking, they'll schedule Hakurozan, Iwakiyama and Kasuganishiki for Asashoryu ( before going back to the jo-ii ). Those below but with better records include Ama, Kakizoe and especially Hokutoriki. Ama is first on the ranks list after Kasuganishiki and is 5-3 going into tonight. What do the Seers say about another Ama-Asa matchup? Not too much to hope for?

Japanese names are examined for the number of strokes in their Kanji and sometimes they need to change the writing to add or take away a stroke. I don't know if that's really the reason but it's my gut instinct.

The Metropolis article is fantastic. Nothing much new but I like how Asa really seemed to open up in the interview. I think the reporter really covered the whole story, too. 'A Mongolian and a Bulgarian... ' line from the blog story was priceless too.

He would have tapped out as soon as Hakuho grabbed him. There was nothing he could do except roll with it and try not to get hurt even more on landing. He came down really hard on his left arm in the process. Good move on Hakuho's part, that shoulder had a great big target painted on it.

I thought this was pretty cool, but even cooler would be stats. How many mistakes do these guys normally get overturned in a year? Are demotions common? Is it harder in lower ranks to make the cut because the guys barely in Juryo are judging more bouts a night then the Yokozunas? Ratios for entrants:yokozunas like sumo's 500:1 ( as I recall, could be off )? Have there been threads about this before? I'm not turning anything up. To Madorosumaru: Very cool post, now I want to know your opinion! What was that Ichido fall about?

I'm counting a net increase of +60 kg, a fair trend albeit between 70 fat men over two months. Is this normal after the long break that they come back all stuffed with mochi? I suppose I'm really asking for a chart ( wha, me? ) with the average weights over bashos. I've read snippits here and there about how the average is going up or down but I think a nice swooping curve is in order. Any takers? I'll do it myself by hand if someone shows me where I can find historical weights.

Your story seems very similar to the one about the Lucky Turtle in Alex Kerr's book 'Dogs and Demons'. CEOs would s

Well, 'Koto' is the actual japanese instrument which is about what we would call a harp. Saying that Koto=Harp is a bad translation which is further confused when people start using names of specific harp-like instruments like Zithers. Think of Koto as in 'That geisha plays a mean Koto!'

I saw that thread about Ichinoya and it got me thinking about gyudon. Now that the beef ban is over, has Yoshinoya survived on Salmon Roe and Natto bowls for two years? I left Japan a year and a half ago when the ban was just settling in but I was already really missing my raw eggs sizzling on Grade FFF- meat. What's going on with Yoshinoya these days???

Awesome answer, Thanks. Three would be a record then if Asashoryu keeps rolling through 2006. Hopefully Kotomitsuki and Tochiazuma can do their bit too and pick up the scraps until the grandpas are out of the way. So Chiyonofuji managed to choke it down to 5 twice and Taiho had it down to about the same number before he retired? Interesting. Not that past Yusho winners are the only contenders but a pretty telling statistic I think.

I was just taking a look at past Yusho winners on the current Banzuke. There are six right now with Kaio, Chiyotaikai, Kotomitsuki, Tochiazuma and Dejima right there underneath Asashoryu. Considering we could see three or more of these guys retire before anyone new wins the cup, we'd be down to a pretty lean list. I've seen people talk about stats for how many rikishi won during the tenure of a certain Yokozuna but I wanted to ask this, on one condition: When have there been the fewest Yusho winners on the Banzuke at one time? Condition: Show us how you looked it up! I'm curious to know if they came at times of three/four way rivalries or singular domination. Most winners would be good too, I'll consider giving bonus points.

Yummy spaghetti bliss, thanks.