Ichinojou kyujo

[Kintamayama]

Ichinojou has severe back pains. He didn't show up for keiko today. "It's lower back pains. He wants to enter but you can't do what is unreasonable.. His entering at this time seems difficult.." said his Oyakata. the pains started on August 25th at the Hiratsuka Jungyo. He hurt his back doing shiko stomps, and promptly withdrew from the rest of the jungyo and at one point he could hardly walk. He went to an osteopathic clinic in Osaka for treatment but hasn't been able to train since. He has had back problems since high school but this time the pain is much worse. Tipping the scales at over 200 kilos, a forced entry could well worsen his situation even more. "We'll see how he feels and decide finally a day before the 9th, the day the matches for days 1 and 2 are decided", said the Oyakata. It will be his first kyujo, if indeed it happens.

 

Edited September 9, 2016 by Kintamayama

[robnplunder]

Whaaaaaat?   Potentially, no Hak and no Ichinojo?   Both are my favorite rikishi to bash,ones I root to lose, etc..  This is going to be a bland basho without them.  Sheesh.

[Bumpkin]

Two of my three favorites. Ikioi being the other. This sucks. Bumpkin.

[Atenzan]

8 hours ago, robnplunder said:

Whaaaaaat?   Potentially, no Hak and no Ichinojo?   Both are my favorite rikishi to bash,ones I root to lose, etc..  This is going to be a bland basho without them.  Sheesh.

Join me and Benevolance at the "future Sekiwake Goueidou" club coming soon in the shady backrooms of the Basho Talk thread.

[Morningstar]

So this is why they horribly over demoted Osunaarashi . They did not want him taking the Yusho from the low Maegashira ranks. </unfounded conspiracy theory>

[sekitori]

20 hours ago, robnplunder said:

Whaaaaaat?   Potentially, no Hak and no Ichinojo?   Both are my favorite rikishi to bash,ones I root to lose, etc..  This is going to be a bland basho without them.  Sheesh.

I can understand why people want to bash Hakuho and Ichinojo. However, there are different reasons for that bashing. Hakuho is far better than anyone else and he wins almost all of the time. If you can't stand someone who performs close to perfection, you root for the less talented people who face him.

Ichinojo on the other hand, is someone who performs far below his potential. You know he can do much better and you root against him out of sheer frustration because he is wasting his talent. You figure that if he keeps losing, that may be enough to cause him to become upset enough to turn things around. Unfortunately, that hasn't worked so far. 

Hakuho bashing won't work. He's too good. Ichinojo bashing however can be very therapeutic for reducing frustration with someone who either can't or won't do anything to help himself. 

You have now received my two cents worth about this subject. Unfortunately, its value is considerably less than that amount. 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by sekitori

[robnplunder]

Rooting for and against rikishi makes sumo far more interesting to watch.  I picked Hak to root against b/c he sometimes wins ungracefully.  I seen him win with henka, push his opponent unnecessarily after bout is over, etc..   I classified him as a bully and that's that.   I picked Ichinojo b/c of the reasons @sekitori listed above.   I could have picked other rikishi to root against for any number of random reasons.    But for now, Hak and Ichi will do .  If they won't be at Aki basho, I will have to find other rikishi to hate - maybe Gagamaru or Endo.

Edited September 6, 2016 by robnplunder

[sekitori]

47 minutes ago, robnplunder said:

 I could have picked other rikishi to root against for any number of random reasons.    But for now, Hak and Ichi will do .  If they won't be at Aki basho, I will have to find other rikishi to hate - maybe Gagamaru or Endo.

I can understand why someone would root against Gagamaru. I also don't care for rikishis who rely primary on size and little else. I'm surprised that he has lasted so long as a sekitori.

Endo, on the other hand, is a different story. Unlike Ichinojo, he has not wasted his talent. Instead, he received terrible advice from people who should have been looking out for his health. They advised him to continue to compete with an injury that should have required surgery. I'm sure the reason he agreed to do so was that he thought his oyakata and the others in charge of his heya knew what would be best for him. As often happens, one injury led to others. He has the talent to be an ozeki but because of his injuries, he's now at M14. A small part of the blame could go to Endo for trying to avoid surgery, but most of it goes to those who should have insisted that he have it. They totally mismanaged a once very promising career. I still root for Endo, but I now don't expect much success. 

[Bumpkin]

I always liked Endo and never understood the hate. Bumpkin.

[dingo]

Cmon, Lord Gaga is one of the most loveable rikishi of all of them, how can anyone root against him? Watch his kinboshi interview video, it's pure gold. Plus mathematically his body is the closest to a perfect sphere. Besides don't you know you're talking about a future Ozeki... 

[egparis18]

4 hours ago, sekitori said:

Ichinojo on the other hand, is someone who performs far below his potential. You know he can do much better and you root against him out of sheer frustration because he is wasting his talent. You figure that if he keeps losing, that may be enough to cause him to become upset enough to turn things around. Unfortunately, that hasn't worked so far. 

He's not wasting his talent! He's got a bad back!

The Iwant him to win school of fans apparently can't understand that. It's possible to think If he wins I'll be pleased, because if he does, it's good for his motivation.

Edited September 6, 2016 by egparis18

[Benihana]

3 hours ago, dingo said:

Cmon, Lord Gaga is one of the most loveable rikishi of all of them, how can anyone root against him? Watch his kinboshi interview video, it's pure gold. Plus mathematically his body is the closest to a perfect sphere. Besides don't you know you're talking about a future Ozeki... 

Is there a video with proper english subtitles?

[Atenzan]

8 hours ago, sekitori said:

Hakuho is far better than anyone else and he wins almost all of the time. If you can't stand someone who performs close to perfection, you root for the less talented people who face him.

This is very close to why I like seeing Hakuhou do well. I am attracted to greatness, and we have a chance to watch an all-time great. So if someone were to watch Hakuhou fight while hoping he doesn't do the amazing things that he is capable of, then that person would rob themselves of the enjoyment a sumo fan otherwise gets by watching amazing sumo.

[Kintamayama]

1 hour ago, Ogami Ittō said:

Is there a video with proper english subtitles?

I think I translated it in my dailies but I don't remember when it was.

[Ahogeyama]

I'm okay with Ichi sitting this out. He's never really going to make that return move to the san'yaku and be taken seriously. That being said, he's likely one of the more recognizable wrestlers out there, both in name and overall form, so his absence will be noticed.

[justanotherforeignsumofan]

10 hours ago, dingo said:

Cmon, Lord Gaga is one of the most loveable rikishi of all of them, how can anyone root against him? Watch his kinboshi interview video, it's pure gold. Plus mathematically his body is the closest to a perfect sphere. Besides don't you know you're talking about a future Ozeki... 

Registered just to approve this. Gagamaru is a cool rikishi! He hasn't got the skills but his strenght... also he is a nice person, i believe!

[robnplunder]

I love to watch Gaga & Ichi.  I may root against them but they are very interesting rikishi.   I hope Ichi is healthy and wish him well.   But given his weight, I am not surprised if he is suffering from back and other injuries. 

[inhashi]

8 hours ago, Ogami Ittō said:

Is there a video with proper english subtitles?

6 hours ago, Kintamayama said:

I think I translated it in my dailies but I don't remember when it was.

Straying off topic, but here is Kintamayama's with translation:  https://youtu.be/flvyM3mAts4?list=PL5-Sg9qYdqj1uCiqdJ4xsXQKqELg4lxms&t=756

And the full match with interview that made Gagamaru even more lovable to Japan and his fans:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYz9de47UsQ

At the time Gaga mentioned in his joy explosion moment about hoping that he would get smacked by one of the zabuton as they were being thrown onto the dohyo.  It really was a happy moment.

Edited September 6, 2016 by inhashi

[sekitori]

12 hours ago, egparis18 said:

He's not wasting his talent! He's got a bad back!

 

And what is the reason for his bad back? From the highly respected Mayo Clinic website, here is one of the major reasons for people having back problems:

 >Carrying too much weight puts extra stress on your back.

Compounding that, sumo puts far more stress on your back. Ichinojo apparently has had back problems for quite a long time. Since I assume that he always has been heavy, that seems to make sense.  Excess weight may not be the only reason for his bad back, but it seems to be a major one. 

If a rikishi, in this case a very promising one, is highly overweight and does nothing about it, his performance will be affected and his excess weight could cause at least some and possibly a great deal of needless discomfort and pain. Since neither Ichinojo nor those running his stable seem to care about his losing weight, his talent is being wasted. 

 

 

 

[egparis18]

14 hours ago, sekitori said:

 Since neither Ichinojo nor those running his stable seem to care about his losing weight, his talent is being wasted. 

Point taken, and a very fair one. I saw a documentary about Ichinojo and there was his oyakata feeding him a birthday cake with enough calories in it to make a brontosaurus drop dead. Anyone who watches Kintamayama's compilation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIl_95leRcM&list=WL&index=89 from Aki 2014 can see what he could do when he weighed 'only' 199 kg.

But some of the criticisms of Ichinojo that I read seem to be just that - ad hominem - and I get angry. Some rikishi can lose nearly every match and that's all right 'Oh poor Terunofiji's poor knees!'. Others; Endo, Kakuryu, Ichinojo draw flak. I wonder why. Is it because they don't wear bandages?

[K. Sear]

5 hours ago, egparis18 said:

But some of the criticisms of Ichinojo that I read seem to be just that - ad hominem - and I get angry. Some rikishi can lose nearly every match and that's all right 'Oh poor Terunofiji's poor knees!'. Others; Endo, Kakuryu, Ichinojo draw flak. I wonder why. Is it because they don't wear bandages?

I agree and have been annoyed by that myself recently.  Some rikishi seem to get a lot of grief for not performing well while injured (I've mentioned Kakuryu in the past, another recent example is Kotoshogiku), while others get a pass for the exact same performance.  Terunofuji is the main one that seems to be everyone's darling.  Osunaarashi and Tochinoshin also seem to get a lot of passes.

[RabidJohn]

32 minutes ago, K. Sear said:

Terunofuji is the main one that seems to be everyone's darling.

Maybe it's because Terunofuji was only a basho or two away from his tsuna when he got injured, so peeps feel sorry for him. I know I did.

However, as I posted at the time, I lost all respect for him when he didn't go kyujo in May.

[K. Sear]

5 minutes ago, RabidJohn said:

Maybe it's because Terunofuji was only a basho or two away from his tsuna when he got injured, so peeps feel sorry for him. I know I did.

However, as I posted at the time, I lost all respect for him when he didn't go kyujo in May.

That's probably got something to do with it.  I feel bad for him too and hope to see him reemerge at some point, but the injury was almost a year ago now and he has yet to get double digit wins (the "ozeki standard" according to some, which he has only met twice in his ozeki career) and has been kadoban twice in that timeframe.  But he doesn't get grief for it while Kotoshogiku and Goeido are considered substandard ozeki but are performing around the same level and also have injuries that no one seems to give any credence to (I'm not saying they are great, just why not trash on them all equally if one feels the need to).  Meanwhile, Kisenosato hasn't been kadoban in over two years and only once in 4.5 years of ozekihood, has had double digit wins in 8 of the last 10 tournaments, and been runner-up three tournaments in a row, but people still doubt he is yokozuna material, yet somehow Terunofuji still is yokozuna worthy its just his bad knees...

I didn't lose any respect for Terunofuji for not going kyujo at Natsu, but I am confused why he kept going after makekoshi was a sure thing; it doesn't strike me as the smartest thing for his career.

[Kintamayama]

I think the reason Ichinojou gets more flak is because when he arrived on the scene he was a breath of fresh air and everybody was rooting for him. Then, something happened and something about his demeanor seems to suggest he isn't really into it for some reason. He just looks clueless too many times, and the criticism stems from frustration because most of us want to see him dominate like he did at first. The others aren't getting much flak because they never caused excitement or much interest except Endou, who now everyone criticizes because he is slowly committing career suicide..

And Ichinojou was not injured, surely not as bad as Terunofuji. Big difference there as well.

[egparis18]

8 minutes ago, Kintamayama said:

And Ichinojou was not injured, surely not as bad as Terunofuji. Big difference there as well.

Have you ever had back pain?