In a surprising turn of events, Ozeki Asanoyama has withdrawn from the November tournament, where he was expected to compete for the Emperors Cup in the second week. Following his day 2 match with Terunofuji, it seems Asanoyama found that a nagging shoulder injury from day 1 was much worse. As a result, he has submitted a medical certificate stating “deltoid muscle contusion requires treatment for about 4 weeks”.
I must sadly admit that I had picked Asanoyama to take the yusho – once again, our predictions turn regrettable. If he cannot return and win 7 more matches in November, he will be kadoban for the January tournament. We hope Asanoyama can recover and return to competition soon.
This is going to be Shodai vs Terunofuji. The basho Teru won one of his losses was to shodai and the basho shodai won one of his losses was to teru.
These two may be the future rivalry we’ve been looking for.
Yeah there’s also keisho but I don’t think he wins this tournament.
WHAT?!?! OH NO!!! I was really hoping he’d take this basho on his campaign to Yokozuna.
Asanoyama is out because of a bruised shoulder?!? That must be one heckuva bruise. Last basho he collected three straight losses out of the gate. This tournament he exits with a bruise. I’ve been a big Asanoyama guy, but now I’m starting to wonder. Go Shodai!
It appears an internal bruise is not exactly your “scuffed knee” image of a bruise. It hemorrhages and secondary damage may be caused. For minor injuries rikishi usually get a two-week certificate. Four weeks mean he will barely make it to his shisho’s farewell party, which makes me suspect the doctor wanted to give him longer and he asked for it to be shortened.
I recall Takakeisho’s wicked bruise.
That was a partial tear, wasn’t it?
You need at least 2 ozeki (or yokozuna) to start a basho, right? Do you need to keep 2 all the way through?
I think you just need them on the banzuke; they don’t need to participate (and it’s a technicality in any case).
This is one of the more perplexing injuries, because his Day 1 bout was a straightforward and authoritative yorikiri over Kiribayayama. It’s hard to see how he could have injured his shoulder then. He did have a hard landing on Day 2, but didn’t make any moves towards his shoulder afterwards. A contusion that requires 4 weeks to heal, with no visible reaction at the time it occurred seems unusual, but I’m not an orthopedist so who knows?
It’s not like he gains anything from pulling out. There definitively has to be some injury that prevents him from fighting properly. I agree he looked good on day one and on day 2 it looked mostly like a messed up tachiai. But it could be a smart thing to sit out this basho. If your shoulder bothers you to the degree that you know you won’t hit 8 wins, there is no gain in fighting through.
Take a look at his day 1 match – especially the reverse angle replay. He got Kiribayama’s forehead straight in that deltoid out of the tachiai. He looks at that shoulder at the end of the match and checks his arm.
Thanks for the explanation.
It’s really upsetting that the “curse of the new ozeki injuries” still seems to be in operation. I was hoping were were done with that.
I saw someone on Japanese Twitter refer to it as the Kadoban Relay. 🙄
if indeed terunosaurus is off-leash this basho (as in his bout with asanoyama)
peripheral damage to some opponents as he walks to the cup is (sadly) expectable
likable asanoyama again reminds too much of previous postholder kisenosato
for greater success, he’ll need to sort out fighting spirit vs tendency to glitch
all compassion re the injury
what every rikishi puts up with just to stay in play is mind-blowing, that there is any sumo at all …