The quarterfinal bracket matches took place today. In the bottom half of the bracket, Ms60TD debutant Gyotoku easily powered out veteran Kototsubasa, and March debutant Ms39w Fukuzaki defeated Chiyooga with a quick push-pull maneuver. In the top half, Fukuzaki’s heya-mate Goshima lost a hard-fought match by tsukidashi to Ms16w Gojinyu, who is ranked just outside the extended promotion zone, so even a 7-0 won’t get him to Juryo. Gojinyu debuted at Sd100TD as Kanzaki three years ago, and promptly won the Sandanme yusho. He’s been in Makushita ever since, rising as high as Ms8. Is this his breakthrough basho? Finally, Ms3e Otsuji crushed out Nishinoryu, who put up a fair bit of resistance but couldn’t turn the tables at the tawara. So it’ll be Otsuji vs. Gojinyu and Fukuzaki vs. Gyotoku on Day 11 to see who makes the finals. Goshima’s elimination means that all four semifinalists hail from different heya, guaranteeing that a single 7-0 champion will be crowned on Day 13.
In the promotion race, Otsuji (5-0) will be making an immediate return to Juryo. Both Ms1’s, Kitanowaka and Akua, lost today to drop to 2-3. The only remaining path for them is winning out, which would make Kitanowaka’s promotion certain and Akua’s very likely. The others still in contention are Ms2e Dewanoryu (2-3), Ms4e Ishizaki (3-2), Ms4w Kotokuzan (3-2), and Ms5e Kyokukaiyu (3-2); all must win out to have a shot. The only relevant action tomorrow is Kyokukaiyu visiting Juryo to fight Mudoho (against whom he’s 2-0), so come back on Wednesday for updates on the yusho and promotion races.
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Is there a possibility that the Makushita yusho race schedule could get squirrelly if the lower division yusho races get silly, or do they insulate Makushita from Sandanme? There’s only one guy in Jonokuchi who has a 5-0 record so I wonder how messed up it can get with guys fighting guys from the higher division.
I’m pretty sure they stop from the top, not from the bottom. No chance they’d have an undefeated Ms guy fight an Sd guy when there’s an undefeated Ms opponent available.
Outside of the high makushita cases with juryo promotion implications from past years that we discussed on the forum a couple of months back, I’m honestly not sure I can recall any situation where a division was down to exactly two 6-0’s and they didn’t meet even though they could have. Like, we could have 3 unbeaten scores in sandanme this time, 2 in jonidan and 1 in jonokuchi, but there’s no way they would make Sd-Sd, Sd-Jd, Jd-Jk matches and skip the straight Jd decider.
Okay, so between 1989 and now it did happen four times in jonidan in a pretty short span of time (March and May 2013, May and November 2015), plus once in jonokuchi (also May 2015). Oddly enough it was the first attempt that immediately backfired on them and led to a 9-way 6-1 jonidan playoff, but they did it those other times anyway.
Thank U very much, Iksumo for that great description of the semifinals.
I think I know clearly more about those fights now than with only the kimarite.