Another bad call

[sekihiryu]

First Musoyama is robbed and now Kokkai, at first sight and in replay Miyabiyama clearly hits that ground first :-/

What was the shimpan doing? does he need glasses? is Miyabi his boy? that was very poor officiating :-(

(I am doubly upset because I really dislike Miyabi (Feeling guilty...) )

[Naganoyama]

One sometimes suspects yaocho when the bout is either very close or the other rikishi, on inspection (or even at first glance) wins, and there is no mono-ii. I think that if there is any doubt, a shinpan should stand up. There are too many cases where this does not happen and the true winner is robbed. :-(

I suppose that the shinpan are human and doze off occasionally. (It would only take one of them not concentrating at a critical moment, if the angle were such that only one shinpan was in a position to see). Perhaps this is me being generous. (Feeling guilty...)

[Mikiro]

I agree that the replay showed Musoyama won over Toki. In this Kokkai bout I have done a stop action replay about a dozen times and the only way Kokkai could have touched down first would have been if his left big toe slipped off the edge of the bale and touched a nanosecond before Miyabayama flopped down. At any rate this was definitely like a bang-bang play at first base and since this is Sumo not baseball deserved a mono-ii and if not a reversal at least a redo. There have been at least two really bad calls by the Gyogis this basho that have fortunately been reversed, the Takakaze reversal of today being one of them.

[Kashunowaka]

One sometimes suspects yaocho when the bout is either very close or the other rikishi, on inspection (or even at first glance) wins, and there is no mono-ii.  I think that if there is any doubt, a shinpan should stand up.  There are too many cases where this does not happen and the true winner is robbed. (Feeling guilty...)

I would never suspect yaocho if the bout is really close. But then again, I would never suspect yaocho without a shred of evidence.

I suppose that the shinpan are human and doze off occasionally.

I think this is a much more likely explanation. Bad decisions happen in all sports, and those are made by judges as well as contestants.

Edited January 16, 2004 by Kashunowaka

[Mark Buckton]

First Musoyama is robbed and now Kokkai, at first sight and in replay Miyabiyama clearly hits that ground first :-/

What was the shimpan doing? does he need glasses? is Miyabi his boy? that was very poor officiating :-(

(I am doubly upset because I really dislike Miyabi (Feeling guilty...) )

Seki,

as a thoroughly uminpressed with Miyabiyama on the best of days it hurts me to say this but he won fairly in my eyes.

Split second play back from the original NHK show shows Kokkai's left foot slipping over the bale, touching with his heel and 'coming back' atop the bale before Miyabi did seen to then touch first.

Admittedly the ref saw nothing as he was looking the wrong way but that's how a dozen play backs and Katrina Watts saw it too.

ANR

[Zuikakuyama]

I think this was just a case of the aggressor getting the benefit of the doubt, which I think is a valid reason for awarding a win. Kokkai really had nothing to offer against Miyabiyama's thrusts.

The same aggressor advantage could be said of Dejima's win over Kotomitsuki, and of Takakaze vs. Kyokushuzan.

BTW, I would also never suspect yaocho in a close match. For one thing, it would be very difficult to design a close match. The timing of the 2 rikishi would have to be just on. It would be simply easier to just have the designated yaocho-loser turn out a unspirited performance and lose.

If the fix was on the part of the Gyoji, then all four ringside judges would have to be on it too. In any event, I would estimate that there is only about a 10% chance of a close match occuring in any one single match (i.e, 90% of the match is a clear win so no gyoji is really needed), and so a yaocho would only work 10% of the time. In my mind, that would be an extremely inefficient way of fixing a match.

[Naganoyama]

Actually I was only referring to the occasional instances where the bout is so close that it is surprising that the shinpan are so certain that the gyoji was right. After all, you might expect a mono-ii just so that the video footage could be examined.

Just sometimes, the shinpan seem to 'look the other way' when there is an apparent dead-heat, if this means that the bout goes to the more popular rikishi. I don't mean fixing from the point of view of the bout being decided before the rikishi step into the dohyo.

Perhaps I shouldn't have used a word as strong as 'suspect' - a better word might have been 'wonder'.

[Naganoyama]

Having thought about this a bit more, I think there is a simpler explanation for the situation where there is a very close bout and no mono-ii. In any case I think I was definitely wrong when I said

I think that if there is any doubt, a shinpan should stand up.

In cricket, the umpire is allowed to consult his colleague on the field or the 'third umpire' (the back-room man with video replay capability) before he takes a decision (e.g whether the batsman is out).

The gyoji is meant to point his gunbai East or West immediately the bout is concluded, even if he is not certain of the outcome, or if he thinks it was a dead heat.

The shinpan do not know exactly what the gyoji saw. They can't, therefore, initiate a mono-ii just because the bout was close. A shinpan can only stand up if the bout was awarded to one rikishi but he saw that rikishi touch down first. There may only be one shinpan in a position to see this, and he may miss it.