Having re-injured the knee he had surgery for, our favorite Kaiju – otherwise known at Terunofuji, has decided to accept reality and withdraw from the Aki basho. This means that he will appear on the banzuke as a Sekiwake at Kyushu, and will have one chance to regain his Ozeki rank – with a score of at least 10 wins.
A healthy Terunofuji is capable of that kind of performance, but it remains to be seen if there is any road back from the damage he has sustained.
As we are quite fond of Terunofuji, we will be hoping and begging the Great Sumo Cat of the Kokugikan to convene with the deities to speed his healing.
Srsly fuk this basho. I wuz worried bout n. Korea doin sumthng stupid and closing it down, but supposedly the bad enrgy is from the sumo gods, and apparently the stomping rituals and salt throwing can’t stop the drama..
Vegan Jesus
Amen
I’m actually pretty happy to see him demoted to sekiwake and hopefully unable to produce that 10 wins, after the events at previous March. His awful move against kadoban Kotoshogiku is very unacceptable and did not worthy to that of a hugh ranking sumo honor. I think this is his own karma. And if he’s unable to get the 10 wins, pretty sure slim chance he can return to full ozeki status again, just like Koto.
Just in case you’re wondering, yeah i’m a Koto fan as well (Though Ura and Osunaarashi are my favs)
Well I hope that my good fan wish cancels out yours then. :) I’d like to see Teruno get right back up there fighting after he gets some R&R. Maybe I can send him a care package with lots of fresh knee ligaments.
If Kotoshogiku fell for that henka from a giant dude even with all his years of experience in the ring, he probably deserved to get demoted. We all love Ura using surprising moves to win his matches, but it’s suddenly bad when you get up to Ozeki? Sorry, those notions of honor fall a little too close to the buddy system match throwing for my taste.
Maybe Goeido’s self-preservation henka parade is what we deserve when the powers that be don’t give them time to heal up properly.
So, let’s say he sits until Osaka.
Probably, with the current rules, by that point, he wouldn’t end up any lower than maybe a low Maegashira, right? I’d have thought with a good 6 months of recuperation and training he could trash the competition at that end of the banzuke (all of the young crop will be sanyaku by that point anyway) and get a good head of steam behind him for a renewed push by this time next year. He’s only young, it’s probably worth doing it right.
(I do have some sympathies for F-16’s above point. What he did to Kotoshogiku was cruel and it’s one of the main reasons I do hope Kotoshogiku wins the yusho)
Here’s an observation on the injury crisis.
Makuuchi division: 8 withdrawals (and one return). Juryo division 0 withdrawals. I know this is only one tournament, but to my recollection there seem to be far fewer injury issues in the second tier.
Juryo has the same mix of veterans, wrestlers in their prime years and up-and-comers. It also has the same 15 day, no breaks schedule.
So why the big difference in the rate of attrition? I don’t know: at the moment the stats of the juryo wrestlers show that they are a bit younger and a bit smaller than the makuuchi lads, but that’s about all I can think of. What do you think?
I feel that he would greatly benefit from loosing a few kilos. He still would be in height and weight advantage over most wrestlers and i don’t think it would diminish his powers at all.
If he would drop 15-20 would greatly reduce the strain on his banged up knees, not to mention he would be faster as well.