A day late, here are some of the bouts from the lower divisions that took place on Senshuraku. This includes some tidying up – regular bouts featuring rikishi we have followed through Kyushu basho – and some playoffs.
Continue readingHere we are, approaching the last “act” of the basho. First, we’ll look at the closing day of the second “act”, and then we’ll switch over to day 11, to see some of the yusho developments.
Continue readingToday we have lots of matches that affect the yusho races in the various divisions. An interesting situation is developing in Makushita. But let’s start from the bottom.
Continue readingAki is a firecracker. The sumodb statistics list him as 165cm and 68kg. For us Imperialists, that translates to 5′ 5″, the minimum height required to be a sumo wrestler, and 150 lbs. That’s about two inches shorter than Enho and ~60 pounds lighter. His opponent tonight was Higohikari whom, at 173cm and 119kg, fits near the average height and weight for the division. He’s a lifer, with a 2003 debut at the tender age of 15. Aki, on the other hand, is a youngster from Ibaraki who started his career in the summer of last year at 16. He was quick off the line with a solid tachiai, and then a final blast near the tawara.
After match day two Tosamidori, from beautiful, verdant Kochi prefecture, is the largest and oldest of the undefeated as the winners’ bracket has shifted quite early in this tournament to the young and relatively compact.
Of the heaviest 22 wrestlers in the division, comprising the rightmost six of the twelve bins in the weight histogram below, only four remain undefeated. Tosamidori is the only one in the top 10.
Senho won his second match, as did Akinishiki, Sawada, and Numano. I wonder if Numano is a Seinfeld fan? I updated the colors in the chart to make more sense. Green is good, this time, 2 wins and 0 losses. They’re clustered firmly on the right side of the graph with Chida being the tallest undefeated wrestler, followed by Sekizukayama and Senho.