Welcome to the middle weekend of the Natsu basho! NHK is going live early Sunday morning for the last 50 minutes of Makuuchi, and Tachiai will be live-blogging all of Makuuchi in sympathy. If you are up in the middle of the night for some reason (any reason) feel free to follow along with us as we enjoy expanded coverage from NHK World. Depending on how well our tech works, we may have people contributing from inside the Kokugikan.

Take a look at the leaderboard below, like a massive wedge of swirling chaos, with Tochinoshin at its apex. For the scheduling crew, the goal is to get dirt on that Ozeki hopeful soon, blowing the yusho race wide open once more. There has been plenty of coverage of Abi’s kinboshi on Japanese news programs in the past 12 hours, and it’s fun to see someone like Abi who is so obviously having a good time really getting a chance to enjoy himself.

Natsu Leaderboard

Leader – Tochinoshin
Chasers – Kakuryu, Hakuho, Shodai, Daishomaru, Chiyonokuni, Kyokutaisei
Hunt Group – Ichinojo, Mitakeumi, Chiyotairyu, Kotoshogiku, Ikioi, Yoshikaze, Kagayaki, Asanoyama, Sadanoumi, Myogiryu

9 Matches Remain.

What We Are Watching Day 7

Somewhat abbreviated tonight due to constraints of baby wrangling…

Tochiozan vs Kyokutaisei – First time meeting between these two, Kyokutaisei is coming in with the better record, and he seems to be an unknown quantity for most of the long-term rikishi. Given Tochiozan’s experience, I am sure he is going to put up a decent fight.

Aoiyama vs Chiyonokuni – Chiyonokuni has been fighting well, but both of these men love to beat the daylights out of their opponents. So I am going to predict a couple of haymakers and a flurry of frantic footwork.

Daishomaru vs Takakeisho – It came to me today as I was re-watching coverage. Right now Takakeisho is fighting like someone who is imitating Takakeisho’s sumo. It’s like some cheap knock-off, that you know is not legit but looks good enough. This has let me to worry that Takakeisho has been replaced with some bad replicant or Man-droid of some sort. Then it came to me that they are using Takakeisho to debut Goeido. They load their bug fixes into this unit to see if they work at all. Sumo is doomed.

Hokutofuji vs Chiyomaru – Hokutofuji holds a 3-0 career advantage over the bulbous one, and he could really use the win.

Yoshikaze vs Ikioi – A pair of banged up veterans who are struggling daily to overcome the pain, you have to feel for these two. Their career record is 7-7, so that means someone has to lose a finger if they fall off the dohyo.

Kotoshogiku vs Ryuden – First time meeting. Ryuden is having a terrible basho, and Kotoshogiku a good one. I am betting on some hug-n-chug delivery around 5:00 PM, just after the news break.

Mitakeumi vs Kaisei – Mitakeumi has never beaten Kaisei! This giant bulky Brazilian has some kind of magic spell over the tadpoles, it seems.

Shohozan vs Ichinojo – What changed in Ichinojo since day 3? Nothing, except the brain-meat that is holding him back. Hopefully he had a nice bucket of ice cream, story time with his favorite tossing pony and a nice nap where no wolves would get him.

Tochinoshin vs Endo – Feeling genki Endo? You are going to need to find a way to keep his left hand from finding its mark. Endo studies films of his opponents on many days, and if someone can figure out a way to blunt Tochinoshin, it’s going to be Endo.

Abi vs Goeido – Goeido is a fun little sumo bot. He’s fast when he wants to be, powerful when he cares to be, but he’s not very long in the arms or legs. I am going to guess he rockets off the shikiri-sen and tries to cannonball Abi out in the blink of an eye. But I predict that if he fails at that, the length of his appendages is going to confound the GoeidOS software, possibly causing him to reboot.

Chiyotairyu vs Hakuho – The boss had an off day on day 6, I am going to guess he comes back dialed in and looking for a way to vent his frustration. The one wrinkle in this plans will be the kami that inhabits Chiyotairyu’s sideburns. I suggest incense and purification at a shrine before arriving at the Kokugikan.

Kakuryu vs Yutakayama – Leave your predictions on which side Kakuryu will drop him from, and who he will land upon.