As we suspected, the damage to Ura’s knee seems to be extensive, and he has withdrawn from the Aki basho. His injury was sustained during the Nagoya basho, and was severe enough that he was regulated to light duty during the summer jungyo.
Ura is a great asset to the sport, with his free-lance, un conventional approach to sumo really has helped boost sumo’s popularity. We fear he may now require orthopedic surgery, and his road to recovery will be long and painful. We hope and pray he has the best possible outcome.
I am glad he has chosen to withdraw early on and not risk anymore harm.
It would have been great if he didn’t compete at all, but as such a fan/sponsor favourite I do wonder how much pressure was on him to enter, especially after the Yokozuna withdrawals.
I wish him a speedy and complete recovery!
He should have done that in Nagoya, tbh. Instead, he labored on and risked aggravating it instead of allowing it to heal. Stupid!
While this is a sad outcome, I agree with Nicoloaah that it’s better that he withdraw. I hope that this teaches other rikishi to stay away from competing with they have questionable knee injuries too.
The adults in charge should have never let him compete with a busted ACL. The elders of sumo remain penny wise and pound foolish, running their most popular rikishi ragged until they break.
It’s so infuriatingly predictable that they would break my sweet Ura. Kuyashii.
There are a few injuries like that which I would hope would have standard treatment and recovery times, akin to “concussion protocols” in American football, and where the wrestler has no choice but to watch the tournament from home.