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Kyūshū (November) basho discussion
For the first time in a long while I was able to follow along with a basho while it happened and only finish it a day late.
What was everyone's thoughts for this basho?
Favorite storyline?
Did anyone do poorly that you thought would do well and vice versa?
Congrats to Kotozakura for his first championship!
Not to take anything away from him, but I was expecting a better final match between him and Hoshoryu, he was certainly helped by the dohyo seemingly to be especially slippery this basho. More than one match was decided by a lack of traction and it did not go in Hoshoryu's favor for the final bout.
Onosato did better than shin-Ozeki of recent memory, but this basho put to rest the discussion (I'm honestly tired of the constant Y/O-run talks) of his metoric rise to Yokozuna.
As always, it was great to see the Iron Man Tamawashi up there, bonus for turning 40 during the tournament and being one of only a handful of rikishi that have ever had a winning record at/above 40 years of age.
I love the pixies, so Tokihayate was great fun to watch and I hope he only gets a minor demotion with his 6-9 record and not dumped back into juryo. Same goes for Asakoryu (swoon), but at M17e (vs Tokihayate's M15) with a matching 6-9 he may not get a gentle half rank demotion to M17w, all depends on how the promotions in Juryo look.
Shishi won't be so lucky and definitely needs some refinement and a greater skillset to compete in the top division. He and Bushozan are certainly getting dropped back down and the top of Juryo has all four top rankers with winning records, Kitanowaka, Kagayaki, Hakuoho, are all in the running for promotion to Makuuchi and Kinbozan is guaranteed to move back up since he go the Juryo yusho at J1w.
Overall good basho, nice to see a winner that wasn't 12-3 and that there was parity going into the final days and not a blowout. Good year for sumo and since Kotozakura won here comes the "yokozuna run" talk that I'll do my best to avoid. That said, the JSA are considering Hoshoryu's jun-yusho to be an equivalent performance so they are both up for promotion to the rope come January.
I'd also noticed several matches ending in slips this basho. I wonder if there was a difference in the source of the clay for dohyo this time around. It also makes me wonder if they use local clay when building it each time, or if they source it from the same place for all bashos. The dohyo isn't huge, so I could see a truck full of clay being able to build that. If I have time, it'd be interesting to see if there are more slips that occur when they fight in Fukuoka compared to other venues.
I was excited coming into Day 15 and for the big showdown to decide the Yusho! While the final bout could have been better, it was a great basho overall.
I agree with you on the Onosato performance, great seeing him do alright, especially as a shin-Ozeki. Lots of potential there, and I'm curious to see how Hokuoho does once he's back up there after his surgery, and if his performance lives up to the hype that he had after his debut. With a 10-5 from J2W I feel like he's a sure promotion chance.
Tokihayate is fun to watch and its great seeing him recover from his injury and getting back into the top division. Though every time I see him, his legs look so skinny to me!
I'd be surprised if Asakoryu stayed in at 6-9 though Midorifuji doing that a basho or two ago does set precedent for that happening.
I was hoping Shishi would stick in the top division, I have a friend who is Ukrainian and checked in on some of the days this basho to see how he did. I'm hoping to get him interested in following Sumo as he's a big fan of UFC and I feel like he'd also enjoy the sport once he has a few people to follow.
I'm really enjoying the sport as the years go by. I think I've found the sport that I'll be following for a long while. I don't follow as closely the news outside of the basho now that I have kids, so I feel a little bit disconnected compared to when I first started watching, but that hasn't impacted my enjoyment of the sport. Once I get some extra spending money I think I'll put in the $1 a month to get access to Chris Sumo's Patreon content. He's got some whacky takes on occasion, but he's been a great source of information for me since I started following the sport.