In one of the more amusing “out-take” bouts of sumo, Aminishiki flopped as he pulled a henka on Aoiyama. Aoiyama was able to recover and maintain his balance as he’d likely known it was coming. Aminishiki must’ve spun too hard, potentially clipping the gyoji, lost his balance and fell flat on his belly.

In the first ozeki bout of the tournament, Kotoshogiku defeated Kisenosato to maintain his undefeated record. He never gave any opening and looked solid. Hakuho also stays unbeaten by mugging Yoshikaze, slamming him in a bloody heap off the dohyo. A week into this tournament and I’ll be stunned if the first Japanese title in a decade goes to Kotoshogiku, a guy who’s had trouble getting his kachi-koshi much less garnering 10 wins expected of ozeki or 14 to be in yusho contention.

Faux-zeki Goeido offered mere token resistance to Kaisei. He ran around the ring and tried a kick at one point but never got any drive against the maegashira. At first it looked like Kaisei shoved him out but on the replays it looked like he fell out. A rather inexplicable one there which has me wondering…

Sadly, Ikioi is injured now. He was outmatched by Harumafuji’s patented pivot move and may have aggravated an ankle or knee injury. He was in obvious pain, limping back into the tunnel. Hopefully it was a mild tweak of the ankle because he’ll have his hands full with Tochinoshin tomorrow. It would be a shame for his great start to be spoiled by injury. The rest of his tournament would be against maegashira as after Tochinoshin he’ll be done with sanyaku opponents and well positioned for kachi-koshi. Depending on the severity of the injury, I almost hope he gives up a fusen loss to rest a day and come back strong Tuesday.