Having recapped Nagoya, handicapped demotions and promotions, it’s time to feed all of this into the giant spreadsheet of love and come up with what we think the Banzuke / ranking sheet for the fall will show.
Yokozuna
I have Harumafuji switching to East as the winner of Nagoya, and Hokuho moving to West. Only a prestige move, but reflecting Hamumafuji’s Yusho. Hokuho looked very banged up at the end of Nagoya, and I will be interested to see if he can bounce back and return to his normal form. I consider him to be the “Michael Jordan” of Sumo. He’s so dominant that when he is healthy and in his grove, he has been basically unstoppable.
Ōzeki
Kesenosato maintains a Ozeki 1 east rank, with Terunofuji, who saved himself from kadoban and demotion in Nagoya (in part by a henka move against Yoshikaze) in Ozeki 1 west. The two Ozeki who are on the bubble fill in below them. The odds predict that one of them will not survive as Ozeki, and we will have a new Ozeki come the winter ranking sheet.
Sekiwake
Takayasu moves up to Sekiwake, and is my statistical leader for the next Ozeki should one of the two kadoban Ozeki fall. His performance at Nagano was fantastic, and if he continues strong in Tokyo he has a path to promotion. Tochiozan moves up from Maegashira 1 in Nagoya to Sekiwake for the fall. Good luck to him in a really tough rank.
Komusubi
Enjoying promotion from Maegashira to San’yaku we find Takarafuji, who scored a kinboshi against Hakuho in Nagoya along with Kantō-shō along with Okinoumi who scored a kinboshi against Harumafuji.
Maegashira Notables
Yoshikaze moves to Maegashira 1, as a fan I would have loved to see him back in San’yaku, but crunching the numbers can’t get him higher than M1e. He shares the top rank and file slot with a descending Tochinoshin who falls from Sekiwake. Kaisei falls from Sekiwake to Maegashira 2, which he shares with a promoted Shodai.
Former Juryo rikishi Amakaze, Ura, Gagamaru and Homarefuji fill out the bottom of the ranks.
That’s my guess, the real Banzuke will be out Sunday August 28th. It’s still at least 3 long weeks until Sumo returns, and Tachiai will be covering the action in Tokyo.
Fun to compare our results ! I think you are very (very) optimistic for some of them (Kotoyuki, Ura, Toyonoshima…) and too harsh with some others (Ichinojo was M7E and Chiyootori M8E, both won 9-6 : in my humble opinion 3 ranks between them seems a bit exaggerated ^^).
7 more days to wait… for my part, I will remember this banzuke as a big headache !
You are probably right. I started out trying to do a very serious analysis, then decided to have a bit of fun with it. I do a fair amount of math in my professional life, so I am hoping to develop a decent math model over the next few tournaments. I am eager to see what they publish next week.
There was a good amount of churn coming out of Nagoya, so I think there may be some significant moves up and down.
Thanks for following Tachiai!