How is the schedule of daily bouts decided? Sumo fans often think that the scheduling is narrative-driven, with the torikumi committee trying to achieve specific outcomes or arrange exciting matchups. While this can be true late in a tournament, much of the scheduling is largely algorithmic, and this is especially true for the first week to ten days, as well as higher up the banzuke. In this post, I’ll look at what should be the first-day schedule barring withdrawals, what the slightly trickier second-day schedule might look like, as well as what the Yokozuna’s fight card is likely to be for the entire tournament.

Terunofuji’s Fight Card

With eight men in the named ranks, and 27 available bouts between them (since Takakeisho can’t face Takanosho), 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 against Hoshoryu. He will then face rank-and-filers in order of rank through day 9, when he returns to facing the rest of his san’yaku opponents in reverse rank order. So on day 2, we should see the Yokozuna matched with Daieisho, followed by Ura, Ichinojo, Tamawashi, Onosho, Meisei, Kiribayama, and Endo. Starting with day 10, his last six opponents should be Takanosho, Abi, Wakatakakage, Mitakeumi, Takakeisho, and Shodai. Obviously, withdrawals in the top 16 ranks would force alterations to this schedule, and, as we’ve seen in recent tournaments, so can particularly poor performances, causing an opponent to be skipped later in the tournament, as can yusho challenges from lower down the banzuke.

Day One Torikumi

After the Yokozuna, we start with 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:

• Shodai vs. Daieisho
• Takakeisho vs. Ura
• Mitakeumi vs. Ichinojo
• Wakatakakage vs. Tamawashi
• Abi vs. Onosho
• Takanosho vs. Meisei

Some exciting matchups to kick things off! Having taken care of the top 16, we simply pair up the remaining rikishi in rank order, starting with M4e Kiribayma vs. M4w Endo and continuing with East-West pairings straight down the banzuke. The only fly in this ointment is the concentration of three Chiyos at M12w-M13w, so presumably Chiyomaru and Chiyonokuni will face the M14 duo of Kotoshoho and Yutakayama instead.

Day Two Torikumi

The principle here is the same, with a few wrinkles. First, the order of the three Ozeki rotates each day, as does the order of East-West rikishi. Second, we start having to work around disallowed same-heya pairings among the upper ranks. After the Terunofuji-Daieisho pairing, it should be the second-ranked Ozeki, Takakeisho, facing the other Komusubi, Takanosho, but they’re in the same heya. I haven’t looked closely at whether Shodai or Mitakeumi should get the intra-san’yaku bout instead, but let’s say it’s Mitakeumi vs. Takanosho. Then we’re likely to get Takakeisho vs. Ichinojo and Shodai vs. Ura. Wakatakakage gets Onosho, and Abi fights Tamawashi. Hoshoryu should face Meisei, but this is another same-heya situation, so we go on to Kiribayama as Hoshoryu’s next possible opponent. This should be followed by Meisei vs. Endo, etc.

I hope this post demystifies how the daily schedule gets put together. I may update it if any rikishi of note withdraw, and I will keep an eye on the torikumi throughout the basho. Please leave any thoughts and questions you may have in the comments.

The first thing I want to say here is that the following is commentary. This represents my (Andy’s) thoughts and no one else’s. It doesn’t even represent my opinion because, well, I’m still working that out. The situation in Ukraine is evolving by the day and unfortunately looks to get worse before it gets better. Hat tip to the folks at Grand Sumo Breakdown for posting the unfortunate news that Russian and Belarusian athletes will not be allowed to participate at the amateur sumo championships being held in Alabama.

Huge amateur sumo news, looks like Russian and Belarusian athletes will no longer be allowed to participate at the World Games this summer in Alabamahttps://t.co/1xjchI6dhX

— Grand Sumo Breakdown (@GSumoBreakdown) February 28, 2022

My topless Putin jokes aside, this is very unfortunate for the athletes. I hope the war ends and the decision can be reversed in time for the event in July (7-17). However, in the past 24 hours it looks like fighting is escalating.

For the past couple of years I’ve been eager for COVID to end because there’s so much international sumo to explore. Russia has definitely been one of the hot spots for the growth of the sport, along with Brazil, even places as far away as Iran seem to be catching the sumo bug. I’ve enjoyed watching the videos on social media.

This whole war, and the way it’s been handled, is completely antithetical to the values of the sport of sumo. I know that sumo wrestlers are supposed to be bushi, and that sumo is a martial art (although Wikipedia doesn’t seem to list it). But to me that means sumo takes the evolution of fighting to its logical end, to rather minimal violence. One does not seek the submission or destruction of the opponent but to simply tip him over or push him out of the ring. Why destroy each other? After all, you’d have another match tomorrow.

But getting beyond the simple rules of the sport, the sumo wrestler respects the humanity of his opponent. He comes to battle, unarmed. If he uses illegal tactics, he loses. When he loses, he bows and walks away. When he wins, the fighter accepts his prize and walks away to get ready for tomorrow. It’s a sensibility that I’ve hoped would carry over into politics, domestically and internationally, but sadly it hasn’t yet.

I’m still looking forward to being able to enjoy watching sumo at these far-flung places. It just seems like Russia may not be for a while which is a bit of a gut-shot. I took Russian in college, before eventually switching to Japanese, because I’d always been fascinated by Russian culture and the language. I’m sure it’s partly from growing up at the tail end of the Cold War but this goth always had an affinity for Russian 19th Century literature and the food and vodka are great…except for beets. (I can’t freaking stand beets.)

Anyway, I guess you could say I’ve been following Russian politics for a while and I’ve had a beef with Putin as his grasp on the country has turned more and more authoritarian and there is no sense of an exit plan or transition, particularly after his brief stint as “Prime Minister.” The developments of the past few decades has erased a lot of the optimism I’d had back in the Yeltsin days, particularly with the growing aggression toward independent neighbors like Georgia and Ukraine and his shocking “extracurriculars” which have included international assassinations, including the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.

International Reaction

Why would this war be any different than Putin’s involvement in Syria? Saudi war in Yemen? The Tigray War and crisis in Ethiopia? Why would this conflict bring such a massive negative reaction to punish their athletes in international competition? Well, I imagine Europe does not welcome war there, especially with a Global superpower as a belligerent. But Putin’s (calculated?) decision to bring up the nuclear threat the other day, and then escalating the assault during ceasefire talks, is probably sparking a lot of these punitive reactions.

This decision by many international sporting organizations to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes and teams from competition doesn’t feel right. But neither does ignoring the rapidly worsening crisis and assuming that Roga (Russian) and Shishi (Ukrainian) don’t have lives and families outside the dohyo. It’s more than just uncomfortable, it’s tragic. Many people seek out sport as a respite from the dramas of life, and particularly politics. And we need to be very wary here of shifting from accommodating and caring for the people in Ukraine and their families abroad, and discrimination or punishing innocent people. If it’s done to foment hatred or just to send a message to a leader who doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about anything but strength and power, I doubt it will work as intended.

I mean, I’d love to challenge Putin to our own private winner-take-all basho, where I’d face the supposed judo expert and settle things the way civilized men do — and give him the thumping he’s always wanted. And after delivering the most spectacular henka ever seen as I defeat El Presidente 15-0, he immediately resigns to go live in a shack in the Urals. But idealism and silly fantasy is rather pointless because for the real athletes, it’s not a joke. I worry about Orora, and Amuru, and it can’t be easy. War sucks. It should not be glorified. It sucks.

The March banzuke is out. Having stuck my neck out to predict what it would look like, let’s see how I did.

The top two ranks went exactly as expected: Terunofuji remains the lone East Yokozuna. Shodai (6-9) takes over the more prestigious East Ozeki rank from Takakeisho (1-3-11) by virtue of his less disastrous performance. And newly promoted Mitakeumi (13-2) occupies the lowest spot of the trio (O2w) as a newcomer to the rank; he is on the West side to balance Terunofuji on the banzuke.

I correctly predicted that the two Sekiwake slots will be occupied by M1e Wakatakakage (9-6) and M6w Abi (12-3), in that order. This is a career-high rank for both, and the first time we have two brand-new Sekiwake since Hatsu 2017, when the rank was shared by Tamawashi and Shodai. I also correctly predicted that the two Komusubi slots will be occupied by S1w Takanosho (7-8) and M6e Hoshoryu (11-4), in that order.

The Maegashira Ranks

Let’s look at what I considered my prediction’s biggest areas of uncertainty, and how they played out.

• How will they solve the M1e-M3e puzzle? Exactly as I predicted, with K1w Daieisho (7-8) at M1e, followed by the 8-7 trio of Ura, Ichinojo and Tamawashi moving up in tandem by half a rank each, and M5e Onosho (10-5) drawing the short straw for M3e.
• In contrast to the logjam at the top of the rank-and-file, we have a giant hole in the middle (starting at M7w), which can only be solved by a slew of under-demotions and over-promotions, but how exactly will the banzuke committee accomplish this? The banzuke committee went with extreme under-demotions for make-koshi records, essentially decoupling the number of losses from the size of the drop. 6-win Tobizaru drops only half a rank, as does 5-win Shimanoumi, which I believe is completely without precedent. Even 4 wins and 11 losses only cost Chiyoshoma two and a half ranks. And that’s just a sampling of several historically lenient demotions on this banzuke.
• How high will J2w Kotoshoho (11-4) go? Despite his top-division pedigree, the banzuke committee placed the Juryo yusho winner all the way down at M14e, three full ranks lower than I predicted, in order to accommodate the above-mentioned under-demotions.
• How will the other divisional exchanges play out? As predicted, M9w Hidenoumi, M17w Kaisei (5-7-3), M16w Tsurugisho (6-9), and M18e Oho (7-8) were demoted to Juryo. Also as predicted, Kotoshoho, J2e Nishikigi (9-6), J1 Kagayaki (8-7), and J4w Kotokuzan (10-5) were promoted. But I got the last rank, M17w, wrong—it goes to M14w Ichiyamamoto (5-10) over J5w Azumaryu (9-6), continuing the under-demotion trend.

In all, my prediction had 28 of 42 rikishi at the exact spot, plus 4 others at the correct rank but on the wrong side. My biggest miss was the aforementioned Kotoshoho, with Shimanoumi and similarly leniently treated 5-win Myogiryu my only other misses by more than a rank and a half.

Haru Banzuke Observations

The joi (the top 16 rikishi who mostly fight each other) is absolutely lit, and if their performances live up to expectation, the Haru basho should be a blast. Shodai and Takakeisho will be fighting for their Ozeki rank, while Wakatakakage, Abi, Takanosho and Hoshoryu will seek to defend their places in the named ranks against the likes of Daieisho, Ura, Ichinojo, Onosho, and Meisei.

Oh, and tying up a loose end. Some readers might recall that Ms4w Tochimaru (4-3) was initially announced as one of the promotions from Makushita to Juryo (which would be his sekitori debut), but then wasn’t on the official list. There was speculation that this might have been due to rank protection for Shiden, who was judged not to have responsibility in the gambling incident that also involved Hidenoumi. Well, Shiden is down at Ms11, and instead, Tochimaru was passed over in favor of under-demoting J13e Kotoyusho (6-9)—anyone sensing a theme here?

Finally, the top 5 Makushita ranks, where the fight for promotion to Juryo takes place, is loaded, with exciting up-and-comers Kanno, Nishikawa, Dewanoryu, Oshoma, and Fukai being joined by Hokuseiho, who just sneaks in to the promotion zone at Ms5w. The battle for sekitorihood will be fierce.