Endo’s back to practicing with his lower body. It’s a promising sign that his injury, though serious, is recovering. I’m just hoping he doesn’t push too hard. Dropping into Juryo, even lower Juryo or Makushita wouldn’t be the end of the world and would probably give him a chance to pick up a yusho while picking up more experience.
Something I’ve been wondering… I know reaching sekitori status is a big deal, what with all the extra privileges it brings, but what happens to these injured guys that drop out of juryo? Do they lose their salary and have to go back to making the chanko and waiting on the higher ranked guys again?
I think they do lose the money and the status when they drop into makushita. And I think that’s why they seem to retire at that point, like Homasho. Tochinoshin was all the way down at Ms55 but immediately won 2 yusho in Makushita, then two in Juryo (incl. over Ichinojo). I found some great info at this site though it’s a bit out of date and I’d love to see the Asashoryu stats updated for superzuna Hakuho. He’s got to be pulling in $2Mil/year : http://www.lemondedusumo.com/english/MDS16_wages.php?mag=mds&num=16