It sounded like Endo withdrew with a serious injury that would require surgery and substantial recovery. Yet the Day 10 torikumi has him facing Hakuho in the musubi no ichiban! I sincerely hope that this means that his injury was much less severe than reported, and not that he’s rushing back into the fray in an ill-advised attempt to cushion his fall down the banzuke. Facing the Dai-Yokozuna is a rough way to return in any case.
Other Day 10 matches of note:
Kakuryu vs. Kotoshogiku
Shodai vs. Ichinojo
Tochinoshin vs. Chiyotairyu
Mitakeumi vs. Ikioi
Update: As commenter Scott points out, the Absent Rikishi page does indeed show Endo returning, but also shows Ozeki Goeido withdrawing, along with Juryo 1 Sokokurai. More to come.
Really?
The Absent Rikishi page also lists Endo as returning (and Goeido withdrawing)
According to Japanese media Goeido has a “Left foot joint disarticated osteochondritis” (let me get my medical encyclopedia) that will take 4 weeks to heal.
Good grief! Things can just change in the blink of an eye
4 weeks…so in sumo math, let’s see…take the derivative, divide by the square root of his rank, carry the 2… he’ll be back Friday.
So that’s Ichinojo getting the fusen victory. Perhaps the day off will give him a chance to reset? The poor boulder seems to be in an unfortunate place in his own head; maybe his stablemaster can have a word, or some ice cream can be delivered, or a therapy pony can be located.
Sanyaku is a rough schedule. He doesn’t seem ready for it full time, yet.
I get why Yokozuna get ‘injured’ when a losing record starts to look like a possibility, but Ozeki? Is it just to save face? Goeido is Kadoban in July either way so going Kyujo at 3-5 just feels cheap. I’m not buying that foot injury for a second. (Long suffering Goeido fan)
His sumo did suddenly change a few days back, so the foot injury seems entirely plausible this time. He was probably not going to get his kachikoshi anyway, so pulling out makes sense as he gets more time to heal up this way and doesn’t risk a more serious injury. Plus he has an amazing tendency to bounce back from kadoban, although to be honest his best ozeki days are long gone.
His sumo was bad since Day 1 and far from what a healthy Goeido looks like, many people just didn’t notice until Day 3 when he stopped winning.
Ross Mihara just said Sokokurai has an injured leg
If Goeido is hurt going kyujo is the only smart move for him. Too many tough oppenents yet to come which he is unlikely to beat hurting. If going kadoban is the most likely outcome why aggravate the injury?
But wgaw does that mean for Tochinoshin?
Yet one more win he needs to get because he won’t face enough high ranked opponents?
Or an almost guaranteed and somewhat hollow promotion because of the risk of running out if ōzeki to even start a honbasho?
Colour me confused…
When you talk about the quality of win, there’s probably no win less valuable than a fusen-sho! :)
That helped him in the yusho race, and it probably helped him to recharge, but that’s not going to count as a victory in the eyes of people who want to see quality victories. Tochinoshin was always going to need as many as you can get. But also, with the exception of walkover wins, you can only beat what gets put in front of you!
Tochinoshin just has to go out there to win every match and accumulate as many as possible. That is the bottom line. We knew at the beginning that it’s possible even 11 might not even be enough because of where he was when he started the run… it’s subjective.
The only guarantee is that there are no guarantees.
That’s my thinking too, well at least part of it. And much better put than I could’ve. :-)
There’s a natural ebb and flow at work. When the upper ranks are depleted, promotion gets easier, replenishing those ranks and raising the difficulty level back up. If you made the Ozeki promotion standard “you have to beat so many Ozeki/Yokozuna” in addition to overall wins, it would be hard to ever rebuild the upper ranks.
Spot on Iksumo, the circumstances are crucial. If we had three or four strong, healthy ozeki then “THE POWERS THAT BE” could afford to be picky about Tochinoshin’s credentials. As it stands however, we have two banged up ozeki who will be kadoban in July, one hopelessly crocked yokozuna, and two other yokozuna who are “circling the airport” and won’t be aound for very much longer. They badly need a new ozeki and although Tochinoshin may be older and less Japanese than the ideal, he is by far the best option at the moment.
When he started the run, he had the same ranks to fight against as this basho. He cannot do anything for insured rikishi. So he faught the last two bashos and this one the highest available rikishi. Also you need at least one Ozeki (incl. Yokosuna Ozeki) to have a Honbasho.
Sometimes this seems like Alice in Sumoland. And we probably never know what’s really going on. The Endo new disturbs me, because we sure don’t want another career derailed by a mishandled injury.
Twitterland says: Endo is coming back. His stablemaster says he consulted with several doctors, and decided against having surgery. He can’t put much power into that arm, but since he decided to return anyway, he’ll just settle for any win he can get.
Which means, forget about Yokozuna Endo, the NSK’s wet dream. Forget about Ozeki Endo. He’ll be lucky to stay sekitori Endo in the long run if he doesn’t reverse that decision quickly.
That has to be up high on a list of ‘Most Stupid Decisions by a Sekitori’
Back in 2015 he had that knee injury I believe. He didn’t let that one heal properly which cost him at least 2 years and gave his opponents a lot of envelopes. Sadly it seems he didn’t learn from that. Someone should show him footage from that period, maybe that will change his mind.
So sad, sickening in fact. Not sure i want to watch his return.
With time, the bicep atrophies, the torn end of the tendon degrades. The sooner the surgery the better the outcome.
Ugh.
I love Endo—his technical sumo is unique among the current rikishi. It would be incredibly sad if he irreversibly damaged his career by not getting proper treatment :(
Absolutely no one has mentioned Hakuho’s hands not touching the dirt at the start of today’s bout. No big deal?
Well, it’s up to the gyoji to call a matta, and the rules on that seem pretty subjective…