The Kyokai released the ranking sheet for this month’s tournament. Onosato is ranked at Sekiwake for the first time and Hiradoumi is shin-komusubi. Daieisho returns to the rank. Five wrestlers were promoted back into the top division from Juryo: Wakatakakage, Endo, Choyoshoma, Kagayaki, and Bushozan. Nishikifuji survives at M17E. Asanoyama fell to Maegashira 12 East. If he is healthy, he could clean up.
Further up the banzuke the joi was an interesting puzzle. As things worked out, though, there are a lot of veterans who should make for quite the interesting set of match-ups. Meisei, Atamifuji, Wakamotoharu, Mitakeumi, Takayasu, Gonoyama, Tobizaru and Ura? Mitakeumi is probably the only soft opponent there. Ura takes a battering but is certainly dangerous for upsets. Gonoyama and Atamifuji are still rather new up here but are solid. This might spell trouble for the guys up in sanyaku, especially Terunofuji, Kirishima and the Ozeki.
The focus of the early part of the tournament will undoubtedly be Onosato. Can he manage another tournament of double-digit wins? Can he beat Hoshoryu? He is certainly on everyone’s radar for an Ozeki run. If he starts out strong, oh boy.
In Juryo, the three guys who were promoted occupy the bottom positions with Hakuoho right above. These guys will need strong tournaments to save their sekitori status. Meanwhile, Onokatsu is one rank away from the top division and Takerufuji is at Juryo 2 East. Given the difficulties Tokihayate had, we can probably look at Onokatsu and Takerufuji as early favorites for promotion to the Makuuchi in September. The biggest question mark being Takerufuji’s ankle.
Way down in Jonokuchi, Enho will likely battle to remain in the sport. He has been practicing lately so I bet the plan is for him to fight the full, seven-day schedule rather than do the 1-bout trick to avoid going banzuke-gai. Definitely my early favorite for the Jonokuchi yusho!
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Interesting, I notice down in the J’s they havent shifted Asakoryu he’s at J4 West again…Hope he digs in and does a little better this time round..Looking at the Banzuke, i think he’s kinda stuck..in that spot..
With his brother joining the stable maybe he will get a bit of a surge in performance.
Hmmm, saw that…Be interesting to have another brother pairing in the race..Hoping brother no.1 does keep progressing and makes it to the San. I still think we need more feisty lightweights in the game in-spite of what some people think…
I think the sport is changing to favor the agile guys.
Welp ! My foolishy hope where…..foolish ! (^_^’)
You guys where totally right. They did send Takerufuji all the way down back in the second division. I should never have doubted the Great Ô Crystal Ball of Elder Iksumo ! XD
Wonder though if he would have showed to be in top peek condition with no lingering problem with his knee, it would have motivated the elder to keep him at the bottom of top division.
The banzuke was drawn up three days after the last tournament ended. If he’d been in good condition then, we obviously would have seen him in the tournament and he would have avoided the demotion the old-fashioned way, by winning matches.
I don’t believe Takerafuji will ever make it back to top form.
Ura is well positioned (again) just outside the top 16. If everyone above him enters and stays in (very unlikely I know…) then he could rack up the wins.
I remember Mitakeumi beeing in the yusho race for natsu, before a thigh injury got him off the tracks. The former Ozeki will not be an easy opponent for everyone around him. But he has a soft and friendly appearance, for sure.
It’s the durability that concerns me. He has had good streaks since being demoted but he has also had bad ones. I got hopeful he had turned that corner but then the thigh, like you said, derailed him.
Enho turns 30 in October. Does he need to hit some threshold in sekitori basho? He had a good stretch till January or march 2020 and the a combination of being figured and injuries made him stabilise at mid Juryo. It’s doubtful he will even get back there now. Should he focus on his post rikishi career by now?
I think he’s one sekitori tournament shy of eligibility for a kabu.
That would make sense. The last time he marched up with a 21-0 record to Makushita and that might not be unrealistic again, but I’m sceptical, if he can even become a Juryo regular again.
He has 29 sekitori basho and technically needs 30, maybe not completely delusional that he could reach juryo, but with his build and injury history, it does seem … optimistic … to continue.
I did slightly better than my guess for Natsu. Iksumo’s 27 bullseyes and 5 half-rank matches is a wonderful score that I am still shooting for in the future. Well done, sir.
I got the most bullseyes but fewest half-rank matches in my guesses this time.
Asanoyama’s dump to M12e was a bit more than expected.
6-9 records got just slight demotions, 7-8’s stayed put with Atamifuji, Tamawashi and Hokutofuji being the only drops. Oshoma’s Kanto-sho not getting the nod over Ryuden for the better spot with identical records or even putting them at the same rank and keeping their east/west slots, and Kinbozan being under Ryuden would have been fairer.
Overall though, not a bad job by the committee.
Oshoma ending up in front of Ryuden had 0% chance of happening.
Simply because of Oshoma being the only one with a 6,5 rank difference then, or for another reason more?
It’s just impossible for a rikishi to move ahead of another rikishi that had the same or more wins.
Thank you, though this wasn’t one of my better predictions. I had the M2’s flipped, didn’t drop Oho enough, obviously lost a lot of points by placing Asanoyama too high, and didn’t foresee Roga keeping his rank with a 7-8 yet again. As Asashosakari also notes, M14w Oshoma wasn’t going to jump ahead of M14e Ryuden after both went 10-5, but why they pushed Kinbozan between them is one of the biggest head-scratchers on this banzuke, alongside Midorifuji going ahead of Ichiyamamoto.
I had that correct. My logic at least was that Kinbozan was above Oshoma due to his higher rank, with both of them hitting M9W based on record.
Funnily enough, I also got the Midorifuji – Ichiyamamoto order right, although there it was more that I thought Midorfuji might get a little leniency given his rank with both of them hitting the same numerical rank.
Pity about the rest of my guesses..
Yeah, a few years ago, higher rank was the usual tiebreaker in these situations, but for the last couple of years, they’ve tended to favor higher wins, unless the difference in rank was really large, which is why these decisions surprised most players.
Living in the past can help!
I’m looking forward to 1/4th the roster to pull out from injury again. Nothing on the Rikishi, just the fact they get injured and are made to fight to save rank or drop like stones in the ocean, and July in the heat and slippery clay that is the calling card of this Basho tends to rack up the injuries and guys pulling out.
Thanks as always for the blog and insights. this is going to be a tournament full of surprises methinks ..!
Matches are out! Da full clash on Shonichi! I‘m on fire!
Chiyoshoma and Takerufuji absent from day 1 amongst the paid ranks. That means Terunofuji is gonna give it a go in the Nagoya heat!