During morning matches in Tokyo, Texas Sumotori Wakaichiro lost his match against Tomozuna heya’s Kaiho. While we have seen significant improvement in Wakaichiro’s sumo in the past two months, this bout was perhaps a bit too big of a leap just yet. With this loss Wakaichiro drops to 4-1, he is still kachi-koshi, and likely going to be posted to a higher rank for the March tournament in Osaka.
Wakaichiro still has 2 more matches before the end of the basho, and there are at least two more chances for him to pick up still more wins.
Was great he announcer saying Henka? It sure didn’t look like one
Yes, the announcer does say “henka”, but I agree with you. Wakaichiro sidestepped after the initial charge. It’s a similar move to what Hokotofuji did to Tamawashi (I think) a couple of days ago.
Kaiho is almost of Orora-proportions! Wowzers
It’s actually not a bad loss if you look at it from the perspective that Wakaichiro probably learns here where the manic tsuppari attack is not going to work.
You can kind of see him going, “ok, it’s going to be tough physically to move this guy so how can I get him to beat himself”
I hope you’re kidding with the Orora comparison…
Kaiho “only” weighs 156kg (about 340lb) but when you pack that onto a 169cm (5’6″) frame he looks enormous.
More like 170-175 kg these days, but even so, there are dozens of guys in sumo who look the same or bigger. Kaiho’s just a somewhat fatter version of Toyonoshima (~155 kg, hopefully not somebody anyone will mistake for Orora).
If you want to see what an actual Orora-like short guy looks like, Isamizuki comes to mind. He was near the 220 kg mark here:
Yes it was a joke – obviously he is nowhere near that huge but to tigerboy’s point he’s a short dude so it is accentuated proportionally which kind of makes him look like a small version
Yeah he slapped the *shit* out of Kaiho at 0:24 or so and it didn’t do much of anything.
I hope he can learn to work the mawashi as well–he’s clearly getting stronger and more confident–but I worry he will end up plateauing as a pure pusher thruster.
Yes, learning throws and more belt sumo will help him out immensely. Having more competition that requires those skills is important too.
These are the kinds of opponents he needs to overcome. Bigger, more experienced and all of that. I have confidence he will figure it all out, but the first few encounters are going to be bumpy. Keep in mind Kaiho is an upper Sandanme rikishi on his way back up after having to re-start. So this was classroom time for Wakaichiro. I am sure his coaches have new things for him to try now that he’s going to want to know, “What do I do when I am facing Shamu?”.