Together with Asanoyama’s Ozeki promotion, the new sekitori have been announced. As expected, there are 3 promotions from Makushita to Juryo: Ms3e Asabenkei (6-1), Ms3w Fujiazuma (5-2), and Ms4e Chiyonoo (5-2). None are young rising stars—they are between 28 and 32 years old, all have been in the paid ranks before, and the last two have been in Makuuchi.
The corresponding demotions are not announced, but it’s easy to guess that going down to Makushita are J10 Yago (4-11), J12 Asagyokusei (5-10), and J13 Tomokaze (0-0-15). Missing out on promotion due to lack of available slots is Ms2w Kotodaigo (4-3).
*We hope.
Honestly there were times in the basho I felt like Yago was lucky to even have 4 wins. Some of his performances were actually baffling.
It’s his 3rd straight 4-11 😩
Seriously, what happened to him?
At his best Yago’s a big guy doing small-man sumo, trying to win mostly not through power – which he doesn’t seem to have much of for a rikishi of his size – but by outmaneuvering his opponents. He looks to have serious physical issues at the moment and can’t move as he needs to, so he has almost no offensive weapons remaining.
Tomokaze pre-injury was basically the same rikishi but all around better – a bit stronger and even more mobile, and I’m wondering how much of that will be left for him when he returns, too.
What’s the usual precedent and priority for situations like Chiyonoo/Kotodaigo? I’m a little confused by how they deal with the Ms1-5 range, especially since there seems to be such a wall between Ms5 and Ms6 in how the committee considers promotion. If there was somehow only 1 spot open, would a 6-1 Ms4e or Ms5e get priority over a 4-3 Ms1e?
I don’t fully understand how they prioritize wins vs. rank among the kachi-koshi rikishi in Ms1-Ms5. But Ms1e is special (like M1e and J1e) and gets first dibs on promotion with a KK regardless of the other records. An Ms1e with a 4-3 has been promoted every single time since 1966, and it’s about 100 cases. By contrast, an Ms1w with a 4-3 misses out about a third of the time!
In this case it was very simple. The Ms4e Chiyonoo 5-2 beat two Juryo wrestlers (J11w Midorifuji 7-8 and J10w Takagenji 6-9) and Ms2w Kotodaigo 4-3. The latter beat only J12w Asagyokusei 5-10 from the upper division an lost to his direct competitor.
Good point; Juryo bouts and head-to-head do seem to count a lot in these decisions.
Not the most exciting group of promotees. Chiyono-o is the only one you could imagine getting back into the top division. (quickly checks the database) Crikey, he downed Takakeisho, Aoiyama, Myogiryu and Kagayaki in his first maku’uchi basho and Daieisho in his second which shows he wasn’t half bad before he got injured.
It just didn’t happen for most of the promising youngsters in makushita with 2-5s for Roga and Oshoryu. This is the time when we find out how good they really are.
In my opinion, Chiyonoo has sekitori potential but I do wonder what happened in the last two years.
In January 2018 he was 7-0 in the upper part of Juryo, and he finished 8-7. It (mostly) went downhill from there, and now he’s on the rise again.
Chances are with most rikishi who suffer things like that. It’s an injury they are hiding and not tending to / resting ect. So many Rikishi STILL get injured and keep fighting rather then take the demotions to heal like Mitakeumi ( who is better, but his refusal to tend to his knee might cost him a long career ) Kisenosato and right now Takayasu. though yes he was Re-injured, it was his arm getting injured and him still fighting with it not healed ( or even operated on ) that lead to his over all loss of Ozeki and started him on this horrible injury filled slide.
Yeah, I remember him as Chiyoo in the top division around the time I started watching…
Upper Makushita is where it tends to get tough.