It’s A Hot Mess Down There
Reader Tom asked for some observations on Juryo. A real shame of the way that Sumo coverage heads out to the world is that the NHK highlights only show Makuuchi with a rare 3 minute coverage of an interesting Juryo bout.
After watching Juryo for the last several days, I can state that looking at the picture of Makuuchi and Juryo as a continuous spectrum, there are a couple of bright spots, but by an large Juryo has been a holding tank for former Makuuchi rikishi working to get their sumo together to try and stage a return.
A couple of highlights today, Uncle Aminishiki (granted, he is younger than I am), won against Chyoo, to bring his record to 2-2.
Ryuden seems to have a cadre of fans in Japan, but today’s bout against Meisei was fairly flat. The same goes for Seiro, but over the past 4 days, Seiro has shown some real fire and skill, perhaps one of the bright spots in Juryo. Seiro has been on a slow upward path, so his chance of undergoing a massive evolution into a sumo powerhouse is slim.
Hakuho disciple Yamaguchi delighted the crowd today by applying Kotoshogiku style hug-n-chug against Chiyomaru, and it should be noted that the day 2 battle between Asahisho and Takagenji, which featured a late and loud slap delivered Asahisho due to a breach in dohyou manners.
In my opinion, far too many of the Juryo battles seem to be more of a contest of getting by, leading one to consider that far too much Juryo now provides a holding pattern for rikishi, as opposed to a breeding ground for the next generation talent.
I don’t know if juryo has ever really been a breeding ground. The top of the line, can’t-miss talents usually don’t spend much time there. And the lesser talents are usually rikishi nobody’s talking about, even if they do have makuuchi upside. I’ve got my eyes on Rikishin at the moment, and Nishikigi comes to mind as a recent such rikishi – whose relatively fast breakout surprised me, actually. (Of course, now he’s back down…)
It’s like Triple-A baseball, more a support structure for the big time than a real developmental level. The developing largely takes place in makushita, IMHO.
Thanks for the insight guys!