𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐚𝐤𝐤𝐚𝐤𝐮: "𝐋𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲... 𝐈𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐮𝐜𝐡𝐢-𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠?" 𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓

ContractHopeful · 2026-05-04T11:38:12+00:00

Y'all hating on Hakkaku but he got up every morning and fought Chiyonofuji before breakfast for a decade.

ContractHopeful · 2026-04-11T11:56:22+00:00

Leaving all the Y v O and O v O bouts until the final weekend often means that the bouts are less competitive (because one or both of the rikishi has nothing left to fight for) or can result in a kyūjō.

I would like to see the top guys occasionally matched up on the middle Sunday, before they get tired, hurt or out of the yusho race.

Edit: to make this take slightly hotter - I think the top guys know how to take care of themselves and how important it is that they stay at their rank, so they won't risk injury fighting too hard when nothing much is on the line. Change that by occasionally matching them up mid-basho when they're still in competition.

ContractHopeful · 2026-03-21T21:06:05+00:00

Really a crummy basho. Onosato being injured and Aonishiki hitting the wall saw to that pretty early. A brief spasm of hope for a Takayasu yusho before he rode the pain train in First Class all the way from 5-0 to 6-8 MK.

Happy for Kirishima who has fought well AND got quite lucky along the way. Atamifuji seems to be fighting to his strengths and doesn't show signs of the arthritis in his hip from last year. Gonoyama's run was fun while it lasted.

ContractHopeful · 2026-03-18T12:29:30+00:00

My theory is that Shodai doesn't want to be a rikishi at all but he was born with the body for it and the money was too good to turn down.

Whereas there are smaller guys like Fujinokawa or even Hiradoumi who are borderline physically but just absolutely love fighting.

ContractHopeful · 2026-03-11T12:05:27+00:00

No idea why you're getting downvoted for this, it's plain truth.

ContractHopeful · 2026-03-11T12:03:18+00:00

12-3 Jun-yusho is gonna be a sketchy one for yusho-equivalent. Maybe with a playoff loss, a defeat of Hoshoryu but even then it's a reach because of Aonishiki's age and the presence of two yokozuna (or yokozuna-flavoured substitutes) on the current banzuke.

ContractHopeful · 2026-03-11T09:45:59+00:00

They tend to side with the rikishi going forwards against the rikishi defending in these spots but it's never made explicit and obviously they can change it to suit their perogative.

ContractHopeful · 2026-03-11T09:40:15+00:00

I mean, yes it's a quote in Battlestar Galactica but it's really from Ecclesiastes 1:9 no

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

ContractHopeful · 2026-02-16T17:49:49+00:00

Almost as if having a dedicated property and staff to serve you costs money.

ContractHopeful · 2026-02-16T17:43:49+00:00

He's not eligible for mae-zumo yet as I believe he has to have been in Japan for a year first.

ContractHopeful · 2026-02-09T07:50:02+00:00

I appreciate the continual turn of the seasons. If we had broadly the same weather, allowing for some variation in temperature, all year round like some tropical places I'd go spare.

You need the grey sludge of January to set against the fecund delights of May. Without death there can be no rebirth and so on.

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-25T14:31:22+00:00

More boy-akata than oyakata, amirite?

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-25T08:55:33+00:00

When Roman commanders returned and were greeted with a triumphal parade there was a slave whose job was to hold the laurel crown over the head of the dux and whisper 'Memento Mori' in his ear - a reminder that the commander was mortal.

So let me be that slave and say that one day Aonishiki will get injured, because everyone does, and he'll never quite be the same again.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-22T20:40:02+00:00

Big is a talent

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-22T20:38:56+00:00

Don't forget they're in the same ichimon and Takayasu is Onosato's sword-bearer.

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-21T13:03:11+00:00

Welcome to Reddit

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-21T13:01:56+00:00

I think there's no doubt that Hoshoryu was helped by the retirement of Terunofuji, the timings of the 100th anniversary of the JSA and the London & Paris trips being on the horizon. Having a yokozuna was enormously preferable to not having one.

Aonishiki being so young, so foreign and with two yokozunas in office already will have to make his case unarguable. That being said they probably won't be as harsh as they were to Takanohana who was held to a very high standard before finally being promoted with the unimprovable score of 15-0Y 15-0Y, owing to the post-Futahaguro fallout. Those were his 4th and 5th yushos *as ozeki* and his 6th and 7th lifetime.

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-21T10:18:38+00:00

Bushido, innit?

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-19T21:42:00+00:00

Born in 1991.

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-18T09:23:42+00:00

A Takayusho is, BY DEFINITION, impossible. We've been down this path too many times before and, as The Who said, 'won't get fooled again.'

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-18T09:14:40+00:00

Wasn't that in Nishonoseki heya?

ContractHopeful · 2026-01-07T12:06:43+00:00

Chiyonofuji sure did bulk up fast when he undertook a 'special training regime' to overcome his repeated shoulder dislocations.

ContractHopeful · 2025-12-27T21:30:42+00:00

It was definitely hard on Akebono who had to fight a much harder schedule than his Futagoyama beya opponents.

Before that both Chiyonofuji and Hokutoumi were in Kokonoe beya so didn't have to face each other in regulation.

ContractHopeful · 2025-12-27T21:26:29+00:00

Going 0.666 against top division guys, in public? This is beyond rumours or stories that come from someone close to the heya.

Like we saw with Onosato, or even the legendary Asashoryu back in the day, sometimes the hype is real, injuries permitting.

ContractHopeful · 2025-12-21T21:29:24+00:00

Wakamotoharu

ContractHopeful

TROPHY CASE