There is a tournament on (Haru Bassho, aka spring tournament) in Osaka now – can follow the daily bouts on NHK World, Jason’s All Sumo Channel, or as I do, on Natto Sumo:
Makuuchi matches are the top division, Juryo is the next division down which is also worth watching to see who the up-and-comers are, and Makushita is really only for the hardcore fans because that’s pretty low down in ranking.
I mainly focus on Makuuchi, watching all of the matches (yesterday’s bouts were very weird – lots of kimarite, winning moves, I had not seen before) and for Juryo I tend to watch only a couple of the matches involving wrestlers I’m into, like Enho.
In Makuuchi this time, there are three kadoban Oseki, which means that if they lose more than win, they are going to lose their rank. Shodai is definitely going to lose, I think. The other two… not sure. They seem to be fighting for it, but Shodai has been half-assing it.
Another tournament in the bag, and the results kept us guessing til the end… though I didn’t like how they kinda fixed the result for the last day. When I saw who they had up against Terunofuji, I said “COME ON”. It was obvious the fix was in…
…though, actually, it could have gone another way on the three other matches which could have forced a play-off. So it was really on the other guys for losing their matches.
Anyway congrats to the yokozuna for winning (again).
