The sekitori promotions have been announced. After a one-basho absence, Chiyomaru returns to the salaried ranks he occupied for over a decade. The others are new: Ms15TD starter Onokatsu, who makes it after 3 basho in Makushita with a combined 16-5 record, yusho winner Kazekeno, who started at the bottom two years ago and rose steadily before slowing down a bit in upper Makushita, and Tsukahara (now Tochitaikai), who was a strong prospect back in 2018, earning Jonokuchi and Jonidan yusho in his first two basho and getting to Makushita within a year, but then got stuck there, missing out on half a dozen prior promotion chances.
The corresponding demotions are not announced, but we can look at the ranks and records and confidently say that leaving Juryo are Kotoeko, Kitaharima, and Akua.
Is Endo going down or will he retire
He is essentially guaranteed to be demoted but given that there’s not been an announcement about any intai by today, it means he will be listed on the banzuke for the next tournament when it is announced.
To be clear, however, retirement talk is complete speculation on behalf of ourselves and others in the online community.
Would it make a difference financially if he retired as a Maegashira or a Juryo rikishi?
In my opinion, probably only really in the sense that if he backs himself to make it back to Makuuchi, then he has more money to bank towards retirement from wins, as his matches almost always have fairly significant amounts of kensho pledged. Additionally, as a rikishi who has scored 7 kinboshi, he’s probably also incentivised to drag out his career as long as possible as he will continue to receive pretty good bonuses based on that.
Individual arrangements are impossible to know, of course, but generally it should also be assumed that he’s getting some extra money for renting out his Kitajin kabu, so that’s also an incentive to stay active for longer.
Of course somebody like Okinoumi did retire promptly when juryo beckoned, but he looked a lot more beat up at the time than Endo does (and was four years older, to boot). Endo ought to be in good enough nick to bounce back for at least a few more top division appearances.
And yeah, the seven kinboshi are worth a lot. Looking at the Nikkansports annotated banzuke, Endo actually has the sixth-highest bonus total among active rikishi after Terunofuji, Takakeisho, Mitakeumi, Tamawashi and Takayasu. (Another kinboshi machine, Hokutofuji, follows right behind.) Effectively, the juryo salary + Endo’s personal bonus are nearly as high as the maegashira salary + base bonus for some top division rookie like Roga.
https://www.nikkansports.com/battle/sumo/data/sm-ranking.html
That banzuke is awesome. Thank you!
If Endo retires then Tenkaiho will be looking for a fifth Elder name to rent.
Somewhat unrelated, but curious if our friend lksumo or others has a thought on this:
Every now and then a makushita joi guy gets called up to make up the numbers late on, and ends up with an 8th bout, as happened with Tenshoho. Obviously he’s not part of this conversation, but for calculating the likely banzuke place, is he treated like:
the 2-5 that he had at the end of his first seven matches?
a 3 win record that looks like any other 3-4 demotion?
a worse 3 win demotion than a 3-4 would get, but not as bad as a 2-5?
I know sometimes for these calculations you’re looking at the difference in W/L for a general guide in how the rank drops, although obviously in the 7 bout divisions, the value on a W/L is magnified (i know there will be general rules there as well, I just don’t pay attention to movements beyond the lower division yusho winners enough to be able to know what they might be without running a query, and I’m not entirely sure how to do that in this case)
Very interesting. It wasn’t even clear to me that he really had eight matches. I thought it was simply a mistake. Now I find out this happens quite often. The last time with Tsukahara exactly a year ago. He fell from Ms1 to Ms10 which would be quite normal for a 2-5, I think.
Myself would have liked your third proposition; something between 2-5 and 3-4.
Basically (c), but I don’t recall how much of a bonus that win gives over a 2-5 (it’s closer to 2-5 than to 3-4). Someone like Asashosakari would give a better answer.
I do believe they’re supposed to treat an 8th bout victory as half a win, but they’re rather inconsistent about that, and it’s not helped by the fact that the Ms1-Ms5 guys tend to get a fairly strong parachute these days. Hard to tell sometimes if a guy who went 2-5 -> 3-5 and got a small-ish demotion did so because they treated him like 2.5 wins or if he just got a very lenient 2-5 drop due to his high rank.
One case where the partial-win credit was clearly on display was after Natsu 2018 where Amakaze had gone 1-6 -> 2-6 and got dropped very slightly beyond a lower-ranked rikishi’s 2-5 record, but didn’t fall anywhere near as much as a 1-win score would.
https://sumodb.sumogames.de/Banzuke.aspx?b=201805&snr=on#Ms
8th bout losses are always disregarded, rikishi will not be punished for the fact that they were forced to help make the schedule work.
Dear Iksumo, I don’t understand why there are only three rikishi going down but four coming up according to your text. Surely there must be some mistake…. ;-)
Yes, I had this same thought “it is a mistake” and then remembered that Hokuseiho “retired”.
And I promised not to mention his name again in my posts 😉
I just got a Kotoeko T-shirt, which I will be wearing no matter what.
Yeah, I have always liked Kotoeko. I hope he heals up.