^ Well, that didn't last long. Kisenosato keeping his tradition of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory lost to Maegashira 4 Shohozan (who was 2-7 going into the match) so now the leaderboard looks like this:
Y1e Hakuho 8 - 2
Y2e Harumafuji 8 - 2
O1e Kisenosato 8 - 2
K1w Takayasu 8 - 2
M2w Takarafuji 8 - 2
They said Takayasu and Takarafuji fight each other tomorrow, and the Yokozunas and Kisenosato have to fight each other so who knows how this will turn out. :crazy:
Don't really understand that mata, watched it a couple times and it looks like the gyoji called it right away but they were so into it they didn't stop, just kept going for a second or two.But we could have a winner with as many as four losses this basho:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww-NFtS2iC8
As the saying goes, Harumafuji controls his own destiny. He does have Hakuho the last day so he's not out of the woods by any means. Kisenosato has Goiedo and Goiedo is at 7-7 and I'm sure doesn't want a losing record so I don't think he'll be a pushover for Kisenosato.
I didn't realize this was Harumafuji's eighth yusho; given the fact that he's now in his early 30's, has been beset with injuries throughout his career, and his inconsistency as a yokozuna, one wonders if he will get to 10 championships. I hope he can achieve that milestone; he's probably my favorite rikishi of the post-Hawaiian era.
I think he benefitted from Hakuho being clearly subpar due to a toe injury. As for Kisenosato, I saw a few of his matches and, even when he won, he didn't look yokozuna-worthy.
Before the Mongolian invasion, common consensus was that Chiyonofuji, Futabayama, and Taiho (in whatever order you chose) were the three greatest rikishi of all time.
With Hakuho now the record holder for most yusho, he would be the logical pick to join the other three on sumo's Mt. Rushmore.
With his aggressive fighting style, muscular build, and ineffable aura, Chiyonofuji might have been the most celebrated sumo wrestler ever.
^ Chiyonofuji was before I got interested in sumo, but there's this little chat room run by a woman in Kobe that I sometimes check out. Monday she wrote, "the greatest little man passed away" and added the Wiki link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiyonofuji_Mitsugu
They had a piece on him on NHK newsline yesterday and showed some clips of some of his matches. By sumo standards he really was small, makes Harumafuji almost look like a behemoth.
Yokozuna Hakuho will sit out the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament starting Sunday as he is still nursing injuries.
This is the fourth time for Hakuho to miss all or part of a tourney and the first since last year's Autumn meet, when he withdrew from the third day. It will be the first time he misses an entire tournament since the 2006 Kyushu tourney, when he was an ozeki.
The 31-year-old Mongolian grand champion had been struggling to prepare for the upcoming 15-day event at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo due to injuries to his left knee and right big toe.
Hakuho remains three wins shy of becoming the third sumo wrestler in history with 1,000 victories.
I was not aware that Hakuho hadn't missed an entire tournament in 10 years. That's a lot of slamming and banging to endure. In addition to everything else, we might call him the Lou Gehrig/Cal Ripken Jr. of sumo. :applaud:
Edit: Kisenosato lost on day one. I think if Japan wants a Japanese yokozuna they better start looking somewhere else.
Edit (part 2): After day 2, yokozuna Kakyryu is 0-2. :shakehead:
Day 3: Okonoumi defeats Harumafuji, Okonoumi after 3 days has beaten both yokozuna and an ozeki. Kisenosato continues to crash and burn, now at 1-2.
Okinoumi may be in the best position to win this thing. He's fought all the Yokozuna and Ozeki, those guys will fight each other this week and I just don't see Goeido coming thru that undefeated.
A rank and filer winning a basho! As they would say in The Princess Bride, "That's inconceivable!!" :shocked:
Edit: Shows what I know. After day 10, Okinoumi now at 7-3 having lost to Kaisei and Takayasu, while Goeido chugging along still undefeated 10-0. :bonk:
I did some checking and over the last two years Goeido only had one basho where he had double digit victories, usually coming in at 8-7, 7-8, 9-6, just keeping his head above water. I don't know what they put in his chanko since the last basho, but they better keep it up!
Meanwhile, Okinoumi, who finished the first week 7-1 fighting the Yokozuna's and Ozeki's has crashed and burned losing his last four in a row. :beaten:
Goeido goes from kadoban status to achieving zensho yusho. How does that happen? Did he drink some magical elixir? Did his competitors all have off-tournaments at the same time?
I watched Goeido's later matches; he wrestled really well. But to go from the outhouse to the penthouse is dumbfounding. It's like what happened to the protagonist of the story (and later the movie) Charly.
Edit: Flowers for Algernon was the title of the original story. I knew that, but the brain isn't working so good these days.
gaijinmark wrote:After day 9, here's the leaderboard:
Y1w Kakuryu 9 - 0
Y1e Harumafuji 8 - 1
Y2e Hakuho 8 - 1
M15e Ishiura 8 - 1
O1w Kisenosato 7 - 2
O2w Terunofuji 7 - 2
M3w Shodai 7 - 2
M10e Chiyoshoma 7 - 2
M10w Arawashi 7 - 2
Goeido is at 6-3. He's got all the tough matches coming up this week. He could very well end this basho with a losing record.
This is shaping up to be a very interesting yusho. All three yokozuna are in the hunt; I don't think that's happened in awhile. The most interesting rikishi this tournament has been Ishiura. He's making his debut in the makuuchi division, and nothing he had done previously in the juryo division had foretold his success thus far. You can look at him as a bigger version of Mainoumi or a smaller version of Chiyonofuji. It will be interesting to see how he fares this week against better competition.
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