Questions related to sumo article for ESPN/FiveThirtyEight

[skepticalsports]

Hi sumo fans,

I've been working on a sumo feature for FiveThirtyEight -- a data journalism site owned by ESPN. Thank you to everyone who responded to my previous query about henkas.

This is a fairly sizeable project that includes a lot of stuff on sumo history including a big interactive timeline. It should be ready to come out soon, and I hope you all enjoy.

But meanwhile I'm chasing down a few loose ends, so if any of you can shed any light on a few questions, it would be much appreciated:

1. On the wikipedia page for Raiden Tameemon, it says:

After 1800, he remained dominant, and sumo officials even disallowed him to use his favourite techniques in order to keep his matches interesting.

But this doesn't have any citation. Do any of you know any details about this bit of history? In particular, a link to any source discussion of the subject would be most helpful.

2. In general, historical sumo ranking have been passed down through time via the banzuke. But overall tournament results dating back to the 1700s are largely available as well. Do any of you have specific details about how these older results were recorded, preserved, and digitized? I've heard suggestions that most results probably came from newspapers or books, but again looking for specific detail. Did the sumo association take over official record-keeping at some point? Etc. Again, links to sources in English preferred.

3. A bit more hazy, but I recall reading somewhere that Hakuho has been studying some new sumo style that may be more defensive than offensive (or not), but again I have been unable to find any solid sources discussing the topic.

4. Again relating to sourcing, this very common woodblock drawing of Raiden seems to be ubiquitous on the internet, but I'm unable to find the original source. Do any of you know where it comes from?

5. Additionally, if any of you happen to be verifiable journalists or academics with professional knowledge of sumo and wouldn't mind being interviewed for the story, please email me at bmorris at fivethirtyeight dot com (and if I don't respond, post here to let me know).

Thanks so much for you help!

[hamcornheinz]

Hakuho is known for studying/idolizing Futabayama, who won 69 straight, during the 2 tournament times.

[skepticalsports]

Article is out:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-sumo-matchup-centuries-in-the-making/

Thanks for the helpful emails and PMs.

[wuli]

Article is out:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-sumo-matchup-centuries-in-the-making/

Thanks for the helpful emails and PMs.

well expressed

no matter how one does the math, hakuho is legend

[Fukurou]

Article is out:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-sumo-matchup-centuries-in-the-making/

Thanks for the helpful emails and PMs.

Interesting article. I particularly like your use of examples and explanations, and links to supporting information, to help those with little exposure to sumo. And, of course, the statistical side of things.

It makes me wonder what was going at the time that Raiden was considered a "peerless rikishi" but never given the title of "yokozuna". Backed by the wrong people, powerful enemies, step on too many toes? 538, can you ever get away from politics?! ;-)

If you're going to put Hakuho into that DeLorean, be sure to take into consideration that he would need to deal with the loss of modern training and training table regimens as well (nutritional and the ever present rumors of "other" things [which seem to hang about all overly successful athletes]). How would that loss impact his ability vs the Raiden and his associates? Something to consider, anyway.

ETA - it looks like you're getting decent comments on the fivethirtyeight site. Congratulations!

Edited May 13, 2016 by Fukurou

[hamcornheinz]

From what I remember, at that time all Yokozuna just meant you can do a dance before the shrine, and he wasn't interested in it.

[Gurowake]

The interactive chart of net wins uses shikona other than the latest for many rikishi. Takanohana and Harumafuji are listed as Takahanada and Ama, which they were at the beginning of their Makuuchi career, but eventually took a different name. I eventually found Futahaguro (Kitao) as well, and I'm sure thereare others I'm not as familiar with.

Edit: It looks like the data dump for the chart was taken before the most recent banzuke was released, as Ikioi is shown as having highest rank Komusubi. Similarly, Kaisei and Kotoyuki don't seem to be anywhere, whereas the chart seems to list everyone who has been sanyaku. The latter not being shown is fine, but the color of Ikioi is literally a mistake, as when the article was published he was Sekiwake.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Gurowake

[Gurowake]

Not a very big fan of having all measurements in pounds and feet/inches. I can assume that you want to include them for the sake of your readers, but even though I use those measurement units in everyday life, they are meaningless to me in terms of sumo because rikishi data are usually given in centimeters and kilograms.

[RabidJohn]

Not a very big fan of having all measurements in pounds and feet/inches. I can assume that you want to include them for the sake of your readers, but even though I use those measurement units in everyday life, they are meaningless to me in terms of sumo because rikishi data are usually given in centimeters and kilograms.

I find it somewhat ironic that the USA, the first of our colonies to throw off the yoke of empire (supported by the French), insists on sticking with British imperial measurements rather than switching to metric (invented by the French)!

As an Englishman, however, I cannot really visualise body weights in either kilos and pounds. We do body weight in stones, so Raiden's 373lb becomes 26st 9lb, which I can get much better handle on.

Regardless of that, though, I enjoyed the article.

[skepticalsports]

The interactive chart of net wins uses shikona other than the latest for many rikishi. Takanohana and Harumafuji are listed as Takahanada and Ama, which they were at the beginning of their Makuuchi career, but eventually took a different name. I eventually found Futahaguro (Kitao) as well, and I'm sure thereare others I'm not as familiar with.

Edit: It looks like the data dump for the chart was taken before the most recent banzuke was released, as Ikioi is shown as having highest rank Komusubi. Similarly, Kaisei and Kotoyuki don't seem to be anywhere, whereas the chart seems to list everyone who has been sanyaku. The latter not being shown is fine, but the color of Ikioi is literally a mistake, as when the article was published he was Sekiwake.

The data for both the article and the interactive is through the March basho and is unlikely to be updated unless we do some kind of follow-up.

The shikona thing I noticed as well when I saw Tanikaze (who is mentioned in the article) listed under a different name. I discussed it with the guy who programmed the interactive and there's a chance we'll switch to last shikona used next week or when he has time.

Speaking of which, are there any rikishi who are best known for a shikona other than their last?

[Asashosakari]

Speaking of which, are there any rikishi who are best known for a shikona other than their last?

This guy might have been more commonly known (or at least referred to post-career) as Annenyama rather than as his final shikona Haguroyama, in part because there was a much more famous Haguroyama (his coach).

Forum members who were around in the 1980s might be able to weigh in on another case: roughly equal parts of his prime spent as Kaneshiro and as Tochihikari. Then changed back to Kaneshiro after he was out of the limelight, so it's possible he was mainly known as Tochihikari afterwards. I'm not sure. (A more recent case like that, albeit with less success under both names, was Wakatsutomu/Nakao - to me he's much more familiar as Nakao, but that's probably because I became a sumo fan right after his more successful Wakatsutomu stint and only saw the Nakao revival.)

And Terunoumi was almost certainly remembered better as Daikiko, but his career was so short that it's hard to imagine he was remembered much at all.

Oh, almost missed one rather obvious case from recent times: Daishoyama spent his entire sekitori career as Daishodai, and was only given the name of his coach in the twilight of his career.

I feel like I'm still forgetting someone obvious, but either way, given how far and wide across history I'm having to stretch here it's probably apparent that it's a pretty rare thing.

[Gurowake]

Speaking of which, are there any rikishi who are best known for a shikona other than their last?

I don't know of any historically that made sanyaku and would be covered by the data set.

Currently there's Yamaguchi who is using his family name after having used Daikiho as a sekitori and for a few tournaments after he fell a lot in the rankings and having used Yamaguchi originally when entering. He never made it beyond the bottom of Makuuchi, but if you discuss him now you'd probably be understood more if you used Daikiho than the very common surname Yamaguchi who sounds like a new recruit given how obvious it is his surname. There's also a guy that just retired as Wakakeisho who is known for going 7-0 as a Ms15TD debut and not getting promoted to Juryo despite that normally be a "guaranteed" promotion, so he's sometimes known by his original name, Shimoda, which he used then. He switched it a few times afterward, but since he never came close to making Juryo again no one really cared all that much.

On preview Asashosakari knows a whole lot more about that than I do having followed the sport longer.

--

The chart specifically says published May 13, so I would expect any data that is presented to me would be verified through the publish date. I would add "Data through(/as of) March 2016" for accuracy. If you don't care, well, I doubt anyone else cares either. But I'm the kind of person who "likes" pointing out technical mistakes such as this one. (I don't really like it, I just have a compulsion to do so that makes me seem as though I like it. I really don't. It's more like being OCD; I see something wrong, I have to point it out.)

[skepticalsports]

Speaking of which, are there any rikishi who are best known for a shikona other than their last?

I don't know of any historically that made sanyaku and would be covered by the data set.

Currently there's Yamaguchi who is using his family name after having used Daikiho as a sekitori and for a few tournaments after he fell a lot in the rankings and having used Yamaguchi originally when entering. He never made it beyond the bottom of Makuuchi, but if you discuss him now you'd probably be understood more if you used Daikiho than the very common surname Yamaguchi who sounds like a new recruit given how obvious it is his surname. There's also a guy that just retired as Wakakeisho who is known for going 7-0 as a Ms15TD debut and not getting promoted to Juryo despite that normally be a "guaranteed" promotion, so he's sometimes known by his original name, Shimoda, which he used then. He switched it a few times afterward, but since he never came close to making Juryo again no one really cared all that much.

On preview Asashosakari knows a whole lot more about that than I do having followed the sport longer.

--

The chart specifically says published May 13, so I would expect any data that is presented to me would be verified through the publish date. I would add "Data through(/as of) March 2016" for accuracy. If you don't care, well, I doubt anyone else cares either. But I'm the kind of person who "likes" pointing out technical mistakes such as this one. (I don't really like it, I just have a compulsion to do so that makes me seem as though I like it. I really don't. It's more like being OCD; I see something wrong, I have to point it out.)

Thanks. Agree there should be a "data through" line somewhere, I'll mention it.

[skepticalsports]

The interactive chart of net wins uses shikona other than the latest for many rikishi. Takanohana and Harumafuji are listed as Takahanada and Ama, which they were at the beginning of their Makuuchi career, but eventually took a different name. I eventually found Futahaguro (Kitao) as well, and I'm sure thereare others I'm not as familiar with.

Edit: It looks like the data dump for the chart was taken before the most recent banzuke was released, as Ikioi is shown as having highest rank Komusubi. Similarly, Kaisei and Kotoyuki don't seem to be anywhere, whereas the chart seems to list everyone who has been sanyaku. The latter not being shown is fine, but the color of Ikioi is literally a mistake, as when the article was published he was Sekiwake.

The data for both the article and the interactive is through the March basho and is unlikely to be updated unless we do some kind of follow-up.

The shikona thing I noticed as well when I saw Tanikaze (who is mentioned in the article) listed under a different name. I discussed it with the guy who programmed the interactive and there's a chance we'll switch to last shikona used next week or when he has time.

Speaking of which, are there any rikishi who are best known for a shikona other than their last?

The interactive has been updated to use last shikona.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/sumo/

[hamcornheinz]

変 means "change". I think he picked up the connotation "strange" from "hentai", though not being Japanese I don't know if that's a correct connotation.

[hamcornheinz]

Hey, all in all, very well written, well researched, just a professional job all-round.