henka

Kotoyuki & Kaisei Get First Sanyaku Wins – Takarafuji #Henka Master

Andy May 2016 ,

Granted, Kotoyuki’s first sanyaku win comes against Ikioi, a man he’s beaten 9 times in 11 bouts, but still. A solid win is a solid win. At no point was he in danger, he was aggressive and went after the taller Ikioi. Both men are now 1-3 and really need to pick up 2 more wins this week if they hope to have a kachi-koshi. The surprising thing to me is that half of their bouts were back in 2010-2012 in Juryo. Kotoyuki briefly made it into makuuchi before getting injured and dropping back to Juryo. It seems to have delayed his career a bit but he’s now clearly on the up-swing. It will take a lot to stay at this level, though. Ikioi’s yo-yo pattern is not one he’s want to emulate.

Kaisei also got his first sanyaku victory over a weakened Terunofuji. I don’t know why Isegahama heya isn’t sitting him. Let him heal.

Screenshot (179)

The big upset of the day was Takarafuji’s brilliant henka against Kotoshogiku. Like Kaisei from the other day, Takarafuji got into a four-point stance early as the Geek settled into a crouch. I always get knee pain watching Kotoshogiku. It just looks like it hurts to bring his girth down for a tachiai. On the initial charge, rather than go after the ozeki, Uncle Taka jumped right, shoving Kotoshogiku, who tumbled and rolled off the dohyo. The leader board stays packed with Hakuho, Kakuryu, Kisenosato, and Goeido all remaining unbeaten.

NekoDamashi x2 + Henka = Angry Japanese Press

Andy Controversy, Uncategorized , ,

Okay, the hilarious Hakuho/Tochiozan match had more going on than I noticed when I watched this morning. I obviously saw the henka but I didn’t notice the hand-clapping. The clap is called neko damashi. Mainoumi, who is frequently the Japanese commentator for NHK, was famous for this move. Apparently the Japanese media is all aflutter because they think the trick is not becoming of a yokozuna, nevermind the fact that he did it twice and topped that with a henka.

Mainoumi could get away with it because he was tiny and needed to pull out all the stops to succeed. This is another bit of silliness.

Hatsubasho 2015: Day 12

Andy Hakuho (白鵬), Harumafuji (日馬富士), Hatsubasho 2015, Ichinojo (逸ノ城) , , , , , , , , , ,
Is Hakuho's 2 bout lead impenetrable?
Is Hakuho’s 2 bout lead impenetrable?

Kisenosato is basically our only hope to drop Hakuho and make this basho interesting. Today, he survived a bit of a scare against Toyonoshima in an entertaining bout. Tomorrow they will battle for the 50th time. The superzuna has a 38-11 advantage in this lengthy rivalry that goes back to Makushita when Kisenosato was known by his real family name, Hagiwara. The historical data at Sumo Games is fantastic and really interesting. Forgive the plug but I love data and this is fascinating. In this case it’s also really interesting to see how quickly in their careers Hakuho advanced into the makuuchi and became a Yokozuna.
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November Tournament: Day 8

Andy Hakuho (白鵬), Harumafuji (日馬富士), Ichinojo (逸ノ城), Kakuryu (鶴竜), November Tournament 2014 , , , , , , ,

My Day 8 update is a bit late. Had a busy day with early morning furniture delivery and then running errands, playing with the kids, etc.

My lead story is Ichinojo’s use of the fake-matta tactic. He’s used it successfully a few times, my favorite example was against Kisenosato, who, at the time, had a really slow tachiai. The process:

  1. He starts too early and bulls his way directly into the opponent,
  2. Bow to head judge,
  3. Dodge,
  4. Push opponent’s head down and hopefully the body follows for an easy win.

I don’t know why Ichinojo (4-4) tried his fake-matta-then-dodge-head-push tactic against a much lighter, weaker, maegashira Tochiozan (3-5) but I’m happy it failed. Tochiozan showed great balance as he probably knew what was coming after the matta. He stayed on his feet, shrugged off the weak head push, and seemed to gain leverage and better position by being lower. Thus in better position, he then pushed Ichinojo across the ring and out. Hopefully that’s the end of this matta-dodge-head-push. Or Ichinojo might go for a belt grab and really finish off his opponent.

Kakuryu stays in the lead with a perfect 8-0 record, and still undefeated against Ikioi. Ikioi (1-7) will really need to step on it and garner some wins to avoid dropping back into the ranks of the maegashira. He really needed to pick up a few more in that first week but I’ve got my hopes that he’ll be able to sweep his lower ranked opponents this week.

Hakuho gets himself into a little unnecessary drama by giving Terunofuji an extra little shove in the back after the match…but with the win stays one back of Kakuryu. He leads the chase group that has been whittled down to Hak, Kisenosato, and Kyokutenho.

Harumafuji (6-2) downs Takekaze (1-7), getting some revenge from kinboshi he gave up back in July. Kisenosato (7-1) took out fellow ozeki Kotoshogiku, who at 3-5 is having a terrible tournament. Kisenosato was on the ropes as it were, but Kotoshogiku’s knee just couldn’t get the final drive over the straw bales. Giku’s knee is not up to it. Goeido’s record (4-4) has not been much better as he lost to Takayasu (5-3). Goeido quickly got a belt grip but seemingly didn’t know what to do with it as Takayasu, with leverage, just drove him back and out.