Harumafuji showed quite a bit of aggression in his win over Hakuho today. It’s his second straight over the 大横綱. In a very quick match, Harumafuji went right at Hakuho on the tachiai and appeared to headbutt the senior yokozuna. After breaking to the left and trying to get a belt grip, he made Hakuho spin around. Hakuho retreated and tried to regroup but Harumafuji was on him quickly and slammed him to the ground, perilously close to the salt container.

Normally, the fact that Hakuho has to fight Terunofuji would be an advantage to Harumafuji, who is prevented from fighting his stablemate. However, Hakuho will probably pick up an easy win from the injured ozeki who will need to beat either Hakuho or Kakuryu to avoid going kadoban. He should have sat out this tournament.

Kotoshogiku came up noticeably lame after his kachi-koshi win against Myogiryu. Kisenosato may pick up a nice freebie win tomorrow. Myogiryu will have his hands full with Aoiyama. He has only won two matches so he’ll be plummeting down the banzuke. Aoiyama will fall, too, but likely only a few spots.

Thankfully, Myogiryu and Goeido are stablemates. Otherwise Goeido might have an easier time of preserving his rank. Today, Goeido beat Kisenosato in a rather weakly contested matchup. Tomorrow, Goeido will face Yoshikaze who is trying to get his kachi-koshi as well so he can stay in sanyaku and likely even be promoted to sekiwake. He lost a surprising one to Aminishiki. Aminishiki – with those bad knees – was able to get low position against the shorter komusubi and drive him out pretty quickly.