
As I’ve written before, the scheduling early in the tournament largely follows a formula based on rank. Let’s take a look at what the math spits out for Day 1 and Day 2 fight cards barring withdrawals.
Day 1
With eight men in the named ranks, and 28 available bouts between them, the tournament will start with one intra-san’yaku bout per day. Traditionally, the highest-ranked rikishi’s schedule starts with the lowest-ranked Komusubi, so Terunofuji will open his title defense against Abi, who defeated the Yokozuna in January but lost their November and May meetings. After that, we move on to the next-highest san’yaku rikishi and assign him the highest available rank-and-file opponent. So the rest of the san’yaku bouts should be as follows:
- Takakeisho vs. Kiribayama
- Mitakeumi vs. Takanosho
- Shodai vs. Kotonowaka
- Wakatakakage vs. Ichinojo
- Daieisho vs. Tamawashi
- Hoshoryu vs. Ura
Some exciting matchups to kick things off! Having taken care of the top 14, we simply pair up the remaining rikishi in rank order, taking into account any withdrawals (Takayasu) and avoiding same-heya pairings (like the 3 consecutive Isegahama rikishi at M11w, M12e, and M12w).
Day 2
The principle here is the same, with a few wrinkles. The Yokozuna gets his next available opponent by rank, in this case M1e Kiribayama. The second-highest ranked rikishi (Takakeisho) faces Hoshoryu—the Komusubi who didn’t have a san’yaku opponent on Day 1. In terms of the order of the bouts, the Ozeki rotate each day, as do East-West rikishi. So the san’yaku bouts should look like this:
- Terunofuji vs. Kiribayama
- Mitakeumi vs. Kotonowaka
- Shodai vs. Takanosho
- Takakeisho vs. Hoshoryu
- Daieisho vs. Ichinojo
- Wakatakakage vs. Tamawashi
- Abi vs. Ura
A lot to look forward to, and that’s just the final seven bouts of the top division on the first two days of the basho! Please leave any thoughts and questions you may have in the comments.