Yesterday, on day 8, Takayoshitoshi arrived late, trotting up the hanamichi, as the bout between Yago and Takanoiwa was about to start. He was told off by the head shimpan.
The newly-minted sekitori arrived late because his newly-appointed tsukebito failed to cue him in time.
Sekitori are appointed a tsukebito upon promotion to Juryo. A tsukebito is the sekitori’s manservant. He carries his things and does all menial jobs for him. The duties include prompting the sekitori that it’s time to get to the arena – the sekitori should be there two bouts before his own in case the wrestler on his side loses, requiring him to offer the chikara-mizu to the next one on that side.
Following his late arrival, Takayoshitoshi lost his own bout. In a precarious position already, being at the bottom of the Juryo banzuke with only three wins to his name, he went back down to the shitakubeya (the preparation room), and there proceeded to cuss and beat up his tsukebito. This ended in a swollen face and a cut inside the mouth that caused the tsukebito to spit blood.
This was done in front of many witnesses, and the head of the crisis management department, Kagamiyama oyakata, as well as the head of the board, Hakkaku, were informed immediately. Takayoshitoshi and the tsukebito were called in for questioning, and Takayoshitoshi admitted to 2-3 punches.
It is morning time on Monday in Japan, and Takanohana oyakata has called in a press conference, apologized, and announced that Takayoshitoshi will be kyujo as of today. A special meeting of the board will be convened today to further question the parties involved, and deliberate an appropriate punishment.
OMG WTF after all that happened???!!! (Is this the twin who already had a reputation as a jerk?)
yes it is. we all know there’s protocols, procedures, tradition, but sorry i have no sympathy for this… as we would call down here in Australia… this ‘drop-kick’ named TYT. a few of us on twitter have been hashing this out this morning. it’s been a very enlightening and great conversation back and forth – thanks to my friends Herouth, Mary Queen of Squats and Melissa Sawicki for this faboulous conversation string today!
Yes. The irony of that happening at Takanohana beya. Now the TYT’s tsukebito and Takanoiwa can sit together and compare scars.
I’m not sure about the respective twins’ reputations. I only know them from their twitter accounts. I considered Takayoshitoshi to be the more benign one, but he did have a public hissy fit over fans calling him by his brother’s name, which he said caused him to lose concentration. Basically, he was blaming the fans for his loss and wanted them to STFU. That’s not an acceptable attitude in the sumo world and he was reprimanded for that and apologised on that same twitter account.
His brother, though, never actually showed signs of lack of self control in the past that I’m aware of, but he did retweet some seriously bad stuff (articles in favor of corporal punishment, Holocaust denialism (“If Japan endorses the questionable Holocaust narrative it weakens its position on the Korean comfort women issue”), and – following the Haruma incident – one of the sewage tweets carrying the hashtag “Mongolian Yaocho”. His twitter account got zapped soon after that.
Crikey bikey!
Can anyone confirm or deny if there are any beer bottles or remote controls in the locker room?
I shall now refer to him as Taka-Jerky-Toshi
Now we’ll hear another dozen rounds of “Violence has no place in sumo.”
Oh boy. Well…it is looking like 2018 and 2017 are really mirroring each others (okay, maybe bad pun). I was hoping that this stupid trend would stop at the start of the year. I guess not. I am enjoying the current basho, which is GREAT…but all this extra added drama is getting ridiculously distracting.
Does Takanohana have ANY control over his young charges? I’m starting to see why he’s considered such a maverick among the Sumo elders! From what I have read, he’s wanting some fundamental changes that would improve the sport. Which is wonderful! — However, if he’s unable to get his own house in order, he should be the very LAST person at the forefront of leading the charge in the 21st century!
I have ALWAYS respected Takanohana and his tremendous Sumo legacy. But…but…I’m starting to question his leadership as a oyakata and as a council board member. Perhaps, as an obvious Westerner who STILL doesn’t quite understand all things Sumo — Maybe I’m reading too much into this. < Sighhhh> I just love the sport, gang.
Solid reporting by the way, Herouth. Keep it up!
Indeed, changes are not always good, and often you have to look at who´s asking for them.
The “modernization of sumo” of Takanohana would reduce sumo to just another professional sport. A big part of the charm of sumo is its otherworldliness.
The culture of an organization flows from the top. Takanohana’s “Kardashian-like” celebrity (throughout his life) is not helping him form the character of these young men.
I‘m not excusing Haramafuji, but recall that it was Takanoiwa’s disrespectful “running of his mouth” that prompted Hakuho’s verbal lecture.
I suspect that the Takanohana stable has one set of standards for behavior in public and a different set for what happens in private. Just a hunch.
Yes, that makes sense. I’m new to sumo, and as I was reading this article and comments I thought that his behavior sounded like an entitled, spoiled diva. I hope that’s not the direction the sport is going, because the expectations of decent behavior is one of the things about sumo that I find appealing. Sumo does not need any Kardashian rikishi.
I don’t think this is the direction the sport is going to. What’s happening right now is that this behavior, which has been ingrained in the sumo world since the wrestlers were real samurai, is getting exposed and laundered in public.
Futahaguro beat up his tsukebito. And he had several of them, being a (dud of a) yokozuna. This was the reason he got into an argument with his stablemaster, shoved the stablemaster’s wife and got himself an intai. The intai was not directly over the tsukebito issue, though.
Takanohana’s brother (the former Wakanohana) said the other day that one of the reasons for his own retirement was his dad (their stablemaster) beating him up. This was the kind of atmosphere these two were brought up in.
Slowly, over the past few years, these things are starting to be uprooted. Each of these scandals makes this attitude a little less easy to hold on to. The sumo world today is a lot better than it was in the days Takanohana was active.
I think he deserves to be assigned as his brothers tsukebito. Is there precedent for that ? 😎
Nah, his brother is probably the one sekitori who will treat him kindly… Takagenji actually cried his heart out today in the shitakubeya.
And yes, there is a precedent. Chiyomaru was assigned as Chiyootori’s tsukebito in the days Chiyonofuji was the stablemaster at Kokonoe.
I was sarcastically referring to Wakanohana being assigned tsukebito to Takanohana
dude needs to learn to tell time