Year: 2024

Final Weekly Update of 2024

Andy Jungyo (巡業), Konishiki, Retirement, Sumo Topics , ,

This week’s update will be a short one. As I mentioned over on Blue Sky, though the Kyushu tournament is over and Hatsu won’t begin for a few weeks, there is always a lot going on in the Sumo World. I hope that platform will offer another interesting and active forum for fans to enjoy and share sumo-related content, discussion and analysis.

At this point, there aren’t a whole lot of active accounts on there so I created a “Starter Pack” with the goal of featuring strictly sumo-related content. Hopefully, one day there will be an ongoing, sustained conversation there.  Currently, we’re on there as @tachiai.bsky.social, so if you provide sumo-related content and are active on the platform, let us know and we’ll get you added to the Starter Pack. We’re also intrigued by the algorithm flexibility and some of the other features.

I do not think traffic will really take off there until the stables and the Sumo Association have accounts there. When they’re producing content for Blue Sky, we’ll see it take off. The big venue still seems to be YouTube, and here’s the Sumo Prime Time wrap-up video for 2024.

End of Winter Jungyo

This year’s winter tour wrapped up in Okinawa in front of a large crowd of more than 10,000 sumo fans. Sumo on the Jumbo-tron! This event featured a makuuchi elimination-style tournament. The final bout featured Hoshoryu taking on Oho to win the Okinawa Basho.

Banzuke Release

As Leonid mentioned in his Crystal Ball post, the banzuke was released early this past week and as usual, there are several items of note. Tamashoho (Kataonami-beya) was promoted to Makuuchi for the first time. Several wrestlers were re-promoted, including Kinbozan, Hakuoho, Kitanowaka and someone’s favorite bullet-train, Kagayaki. Hakuoho’s return has been eagerly anticipated given his obvious talent.

Konishiki Recovery

News from Tokyo that Konishiki had been hospitalized last month in kidney failure. His wife, Chie, donated her kidney and after a successful operation, Konishiki is in recovery. He has been spending precious time over the holidays with the youngsters at Musashigawa-beya. We hope to see him again at a Sumo+Sushi event in the future.

SumoDB Rollercoaster

Tachiai is forever indebted to the sumo database (sumodb.sumogames.de). At last check, the site was back up. I had reburied some new squid that I buried under my computer is seasoned with salt, sake, and some ground kachi-kuri. Hopefully this one will do the job.

The data that’s there and the interface are such valuable contributions to sumo-fandom. Whether you’re new to sumo and hope to learn more about the active rikishi, or you’re an old hand trying to tweak your GTB methodology, or a wannabe journalist pulling up stats for a retired rikishi, that site is invaluable. Unfortunately, it had been down for quite a bit over the past few weeks. As hours turn into days, many of us begin to fear the worst.

Onosho and Kyokutaisei Retired

As of our last post, Onosho (Onomatsu) and Kyokutaisei (Oshima) announced their retirements.

Onosho’s announcement was sudden as he is only 28 years old, but expected as he had been injured. He was an early rival of Takakeisho and a founding member of Bruce’s “Tadpole” cohort. He rose quickly through the lower divisions and established himself in the top division, peaking at Komusubi. But knee injuries really hampered his ability to stay among the joi-jin and press for higher rank.

He spent much of last year in the upper half of the rank-and-file but his final fall was rather swift. He was ranked Maegashira 5 in Nagoya but destined for Makushita by Christmas, so he decided to retire. He will not stay with the Kyokai but we are eager to see what he plans to do in his second career.

Kyokutaisei had a lengthy stint as sekitori, mostly in Juryo. He briefly did break through the tatami ceiling and rise into the top division, even earning a fighting spirit prize. However, he had spent the last few years in Makushita and was destined to fall back into Sandanme for Hatsu Basho. Ranked at Sandanme 20 to start 2025, Kyokutaisei decided to retire. He will not be staying with the Kyokai, either.

Wrap-up

My apologies for the rather perfunctory write-up. It’s been a crazy week. Next year, I hope Tachiai can host a Bonenkai. Maybe we’ll do it over Zoom or Teams or something so we can all forget the year, wherever we are. We are really excited for 2025 but I have a feeling 2026 will be even better!

Hatsu 2025 Banzuke Crystal Ball

lksumo Aki Basho 2022

The holidays mean that the January rankings will be released early—Sunday or Monday, depending on where you are in the world. I took an early look at some of the key banzuke decisions immediately after the Kyushu basho; now here’s my full banzuke guess. Scroll down for a brief analysis.

The named ranks should be correct; the only plausible change would be to slide Wakamotoharu ahead of Daieisho. The identities of the first 5 maegashira are clear, though several arrangements for M1e-M3e are possible. The biggest wildcard is probably how much of a parachute the 4-11 M4 duo of Churanoumi and Oshoma are given. There are several potential local switches, especially in the long run of wrestlers of similar rank with 8-7 and 7-8 records in the middle of the banzuke. And Nishikifuji could well end up at M17e, though given his recent treatment and the general incumbent preference, I’ve opted to bump him up a rank in my prediction. Anyway, we’ll see how close I got in a few days; in the meantime, let me know what you think in the comments.

Winter Jungyo, Week Two

Andy Jungyo (巡業), Sumo Topics , ,

A few things of note during Week Two. First, Yokozuna Terunofuji began practicing. He started with some butsukari with Ozeki Kotozakura, and then he did some practice bouts. I am sure the goal is for him to participate in Hatsu basho. Both Kotozakura and Hoshoryu are eyeing potential promotion in January. We have often spoken of the transition era but the last two tournaments have been missing something significant with the absence of Terunofuji. If Terunofuji goes the distance and is a factor in the yusho any outcome will have increased legitimacy, especially compared to when he is on the sidelines.

We also had double debuts for the bow-twirling ceremony. Hananoumi was on duty when the troupe passed through Ako City and Dewataikai performed it at the second event in Takarazuka. Hananoumi is in Nishonoseki-beya with Ozeki Onosato and Dewataikai is in Dewanoumi beya, the same Ichimon with Hoshoryu’s Tatsunami-beya. We’ve got Enho able to perform the ceremony from Isegahama and Kototsubasa on tap from Kotozakura’s Sadogatake-beya. No matter who is fighting in the musubi-no-ichiban, the Kyokai will be able to pair up with an associated yumitorishiki performer.

Kitakyushu and Shimonoseki

Day 7 and 8 of the Winter Jungyo took place in the two cities that straddle the Kanmon strait which separates Kyushu from Honshu. Kitakyushu is obviously on the Kyushu side, Shimonoseki is on the Honshu side. Onoe-beya took a pitstop here a few weeks ago on their way to Fukuoka. I was particularly struck by the scenery as okamisan panned the camera to take in the view. The islands within the straits seem to have ferries available for exploring. Just be careful of those massive ships!

Hyogo Prefecture

The next three Jungyo sites were in Hyogo Prefecture. Hyogo is interesting with Shin-Onsen on its northern coast on the Sea of Japan and then the southern coast on the Seto Sea. You will recognize the characters for Seto (瀬戸) as they are used in shikona. Setoyutaka, for example, is from neighboring Okayama prefecture which also borders the Seto Sea. The sea and neighboring coastal areas are known as the Setouchi region.

Both of our Jungyo sites, Ako city and Takarazuka are in the southern portion of Hyogo near the Seto sea. In 1703, Ako was the site of the “Ako Incident” which was made into several movies, including The Loyal 47 Ronin, another movie starring Keanu Reeves, and another one featuring Morgan Freeman. In the incident, 47 ronin avenge the death of their leader. Blood, guts, glory.

In other news, Ako is also known for salt production. All sumo fans will quickly recognize the significance of salt in our sport. Unfortunately, please note that the site dates from before the pandemic so I am not sure if the salt tour which is mentioned is still operating. There is an Ako Science Museum which has some restored salt fields along the coast.

Moving to the eastern border of Hyogo to Takarazuka, we move into more urban areas around Kobe. Takarazuka is also right next to Itami, known as the Birthplace of sake. There are several sake breweries in the area, including a couple of breweries which date back to the 17th Century.

Osaka

Osaka hosted two Jungyo events, Suita City and Kawachinagano. Unfortunately, I’ll be pretty brief here at the Osaka stops. Needless to say, I need to go to Osaka. From here, they will head to Mie prefecture and then on to the tropical paradise of Okinawa. Josh informed me of a ferry that goes to Okinawa. It would be pretty cool to take a sumo cruise with a boat-load of sumo wrestlers to Okinawa.

Are we really in the dark ages of sumo?

bradk Commentary , , ,

Last week I looked at the 2024 yusho year and tried to situate it historically through focusing on the wins and rank of the yusho winner. I concluded by observing 2024 continued a trend beginning in 2019 of below-average win totals and a below-average rank of the champion. Some responded that I was being negative about the quality of sumo. Similarly, some said the metric is only useful for making assertions about dominance, not quality.

What I commented under that post, I repeat here: I was not attempting to be negative about the current state of sumo. Anything I write about Makuuchi division sumo is written with the understanding I am writing about the 40 or so best athletes in their sport. Every other month we are treated to the 40 best men in the world competing against one another. What other sport can say that? We are spoiled.

As for the critique of dominance versus quality: it is accurate…to a point. I don’t think it is unreasonable to assert a Yokozuna is a qualitatively better rikishi than a komusubi. I feel pretty confident that 14 wins is qualitatively better than 12 wins. If I had the choice between watching a year 6 komusubi yusho with 12 wins or 6 yokozuna yusho with 14 wins; I’d take the latter. In 2024, we basically saw the former.

So is the current state of sumo so bleak? No.

A shortcoming of the championship quality metric is the built-in dominance factor: it does not consider anyone else but the champion. Is there a way to evaluate the competitiveness of a basho, or an entire year of basho?

A simple way would be to compare the difference between the amount of wins between the yusho winner and the runner up. We could call this yusho differential: yusho wins minus jun-yusho wins=yusho differential. A small yusho differential (YD) would seem to indicate a more competitive yusho since it would mean the winner and runner-up had a similar number of wins. I am arguing that a 13-3 (Y)-12-3(JY) is more competitive than a 15-0(Y)-12-3(JY).

In a yusho year we would expect a YD close to 6 since the champion usually has at least one more win than the runner up. In fact, plotting the YD since 1958 this is what we see:

Most years, the YD ends up at 8 (12 times), closely followed by 9 (10 times) and 7 (9 times). So, a YD of 7 to 9 is average and indicates the champion winning 1 or 2 more matches than the runner up. Anything below this 7-9 range would indicate a more competitive basho and a higher total would indicate a less competitive basho.

Evaluating basho years this way, 1997 was clearly the most competitive ever with a YD of 2. Playoffs decided 4 of the basho that year: highlighted by March when there was a 4-way playoff! At the other end of the spectrum, 1984 and 2013 saw the champion outpace the runner up by 15 wins. 2013 may have been exciting for fans of Hakuho and Harumafuji, but probably not so much for others.

How did 2024 stack up in this measure of competitiveness? With the help of 2 playoffs, the YD for 2024 was 5. And believe it or not, this year was the third consecutive year with a YD of 5. We have had 3 consecutive years of basho with multiple playoffs (two in ’22 and ‘24; and three in ‘23). The YD metric indicates we are in a very competitive- some might even say, exciting- era of sumo! The past three years have been very competitive with yusho frequently coming down to the final matches of day 15. The only span of 3+ years that can equal this level of competitiveness was 1997-2001:

Year YD
1997 2
1998 8
1999 4
2000 6
2001 4

Numbers don’t tell the whole story. Numbers will never tell us which Shodai is going to show up any given Tuesday. But numbers can help us tell a better story. Considering yusho-differential helps us appreciate the competitiveness of the past several years- one of the most competitive time periods in recent history. The lack of dominant yokozuna/ozeki performances have made way for closer yusho races.  What excitement will 2025 bring?