After 6 days and 3 rounds of bouts, let’s take a look at the action in Makushita, where exciting newcomers mix it up with veterans for a shot at the salaried ranks.
As a reminder, the Makushita yusho race is essentially a seven-round single-elimination tournament, in which the 120 or so rikishi are reduced by half over two-day rounds until one man with a 7-0 record takes the title (occasionally, same-heya rikishi and other wrinkles throw a wrench into the works, and we end up with a playoff and a 6-1 champion). Three rounds have been completed so far, and we are left with 15 undefeated wrestlers with 3-0 records. The next round, unfolding over Days 7 and 8, will reduce the number to 7 or 8.
The obvious headliner among the undefeated rikishi is former Ozeki Asanoyama (Ms15e). A lot is at stake for him, as a wrestler in the Ms6-Ms15 ranks who goes 7-0 receives a near-automatic promotion to Juryo, while a 6-1 record merely moves him up into the Ms1-Ms5 promotion zone. Tomorrow, Asanoyama faces Ms17w Dewanoryu. Should he prevail, next up would be the winner of the bout between Ms5w Shonnanoumi and Ms7w Tokihayate. The other undefeated men in Makushita are all ranked below Ms20 and do not include any notable names, although, amusingly, we could get Asanoyama vs. Ms56e Asonoyama in the title decider.
After only 3 rounds of bouts, all 9 active wrestlers in the Ms1-Ms5 promotion zone are still technically in contention (the 10th, Ms1e Kaisei, retired before the basho). It’s too early to speculate on the ultimate outcome, but in addition to the aforementioned Shonnanoumi, Ms1w Roga, Ms2e Tomokaze, Ms4e Tsushimanada, and Ms5e Fujiseiun are off to solid 2-1 starts. They are paired up tomorrow, and victories by Roga and Tomokaze could see them one win away from long-awaited Juryo debut and sekitori return, respectively.
I’ll try to keep these reports coming every two days or so, as additional rounds of bouts are completed.
The first two days of bouts have been posted. Apparently, the matchups had to be redone due to a late withdrawal by Abi right after the first fight card was announced. Abi’s withdrawal is not COVID-related, but is rather due to ankle and shoulder injuries he’s been dealing with for some time. If Abi is not able to reenter, he’ll drop from Komusubi into mid-maegashira ranks.
I’ll highlight a few headline bouts here. Yokozuna Terunofuji will open the tournament against Komusubi Kiribayama, followed by M1e Tobizaru on Day 2. O1e Takakeisho has a tough matchup with Komusubi Ichinojo on shonichi before facing M1w Midorifuji (quite a contrast in sizes and styles). O1w Shodai gets Tobizaru first and Kiribayama second, while O2w Mitakeumi will seek the first two wins of the 8 he needs to hold rank against Midorifuji and Ichinojo.
Moving on to lower san’yaku, S1e Wakatakakage will attempt to restart his Ozeki run against M2e Kotonowaka and M2w Meisei. S1w Hoshoryu will start his Sekiwake career against M3e Tamawashi and Kotonowaka, while the third Sekiwake, Daieisho, opens with Meisei and Tamawashi.
After that, it’s on to maegashira pairings, with one Juryo visitor each day to make up for Abi’s absence. Plenty of intriguing matchups to look forward to!
The long-awaited Aki banzuke is out, and any attemptto divine what the banzuke committee would do under the unprecedented circumstances turned out to be a fool’s errand. The general principle with regard to the COVID withdrawals seems to have been to freeze the ranks of everyone who left before recording 8 wins or 8 losses, and to promote/demote those who did clinch a winning/losing record, but the application was far from consistent.
The named ranks
First, the obvious placements. Terunofuji (11-4) remains the sole East Yokozuna. East Ozeki Takakeisho (11-4) keeps his spot, while fellow Ozeki Shodai (10-5) moves up from O2w to O1w. Likewise, East Sekiwake Wakatakakage (8-7) stays where he is.
Things get less predictable from here. As widely expected, Mitakeumi (2-4*) gets to keep his Ozeki rank, but switches spots with Shodai. Presumably, he’ll be kadoban again, though I haven’t heard anything official. The next big question was what to do with S1w Daieisho (6-6*). As I expected, they concluded that it would be unfair for him to lose his rank. But, apparently, they also decided that it would be unfair for him to block K1e Hoshoryu (9-6) from moving up, even though the Komusubi did not post the 11 wins that normally warrant an extra Sekiwake slot. So, he will make his Sekiwake debut at S1w, with Daiesho at S2e.
With Hoshoryu moving up, Abi (8-7) slides over from K1w to K1e, opening up a Komusubi slot. As expected, this goes to the July champion Ichinojo (12-3 at M2w). And, at least in these circumstances, an 8-7 record at M1e is apparently still enough to create an extra Komusubi slot, so Kiribayama will be K2w. I expected a 10-member san’yaku, with exactly this composition, but I thought it would be 2 Sekiwake and 4 Komusubi, not 3 of each, and had Daieisho and Hoshoryu in the wrong rank order.
The rank and file
With the two extra san’yaku slots, and the top division fixed at 42 rikishi, the M17 rank disappears, so we’re looking at M1-M16. And we got an answer to one key question right at M1e. It seemed like M2e Kotonowaka (7-3*) would have by far the strongest case, as even a single win in the 5 bouts he missed would have made him a lock. But the banzuke committee decided not to promote anyone with fewer than 8 wins (or fewer than 4, in the lower divisions). For Kotonowaka, the difference is a single rank, but for others (most prominently Ichiyamamoto in the top division, but also the likes of Oshoma in Juryo and Oshoryu in Makushita), the cost was much higher. So instead, M6w Tobizaru (8-4*), who just got his 8th win before pulling out, will occupy the top maegashira rank, despite having the same win-loss differential as Kotonowaka and being ranked 9 spots lower.
Applying the same logic, I would have expected to see M8w Nishikigi (8-4*) at M1w, but apparently he wasn’t given credit for a full 4-win differential, as the M1w and M2w ranks instead went to M11w Midorifuji (10-5) and M10w Meisei (9-6), respectively, representing historically large over-promotions. After that, the committee simply left the M3 rikishi (Tamawashi, 5-7* and Ura, 7-8) in place to avoid additional over-promotions, and finally slotted in Nishikigi at M4e, followed by the absent Takayasu at M4w.
Among other decisions that struck me as odd, Endo (3-9*) falls only from M5e to M6w; I guess his is the flip side of Nishikigi’s case, so that the movement is in the right direction but by fewer ranks than expected based on win-loss differential (in effect, they were treated as though they went 8-7 for Nishikigi and 6-9 for Endo). Takanosho, with only one win at M1w, was lucky to only drop to M10w, while the bias against Juryo rikishi pushed division champion Ryuden (12-3 at J1e) down to M12w; nevertheless, he returns to the top division.
As expected, leaving the division are M9e Shimanoumi (1-14), M17w Chiyomaru (6-9), and M16w Daiamami (2-10*). All of them put up rank-record combinations that were impossible to keep, but Ryuden had the only legitimate promotion case, so the replacements who will occupy the now-lowest M16 rank must count themselves very lucky. They are J4 Mitoriyu (9-6) and J8 Hiradoumi (10-5), both making their top-division debuts. They took rather different paths to get here. Mitoryu (28 years old) entered ozumo at Ms15TD back in 2017, reached Juryo by January 2018, and then stayed there for 27 consecutive tournaments (four and a half years). Hiradoumi actually started earlier, in 2016, via the more standard maezumo route, and is only 22. He took almost 6 years to get to Juryo, but is jumping up to Makuuchi after only 5 basho in the second division.
If you’ve read this far, you deserve a bonus. Former Ozeki Asanoyama’s Sandanme yusho saw him move up to M15e. While we had a good general idea of where he’d be ranked, the precise placement is important, as M15 is the lowest rank at which a 7-0 record means a near-automatic promotion to Juryo, potentially shortening Asanoyama’s return to the top division (and, dare we hope, his highest rank?) by an entire basho compared to being placed one rank lower.
I’ll wrap it up here, but there’s no shortage of discussion points for this highly unusual banzuke, so let me know what you think in the comments.
The banzuke meeting was held today, and the promotions to Juryo from Makushita have been announced. As expected, Ms1w Kinbozan (6-1) and Ms2w Kanno (5-2) will make their sekitori debuts in September, while Ms1e Takakento (4-3) will return after a one-basho absence; he’s been bouncing back and forth between the second and third divisions since making his first Juryo appearance in March 2021.
The corresponding demotions are not announced, but we can infer that they are the absent J10w Ishiura, J12w Yago (4-11), and J11e Kaisei (5-10). The fact that there are only 3 exchanges strongly suggests that J10e Shimazuumi (5-3*) and J13e Oshoma (5-3*), who both pulled out on Day 9 due to COVID, are at the very least not being treated as though their absences were losses, as is normally the case for absences due to injury. This gives us a small hint as to how the rest of the COVID-related withdrawals may be treated.
