the Butt-zuke! by Elecca Tetice
Sumo at the World Games! Open weight division today.
Controversy in yesterday’s Light weight class final.
Yeah, no backflips.
Also, no weight classes, but I get it. This isn’t real sumo.
Speaking of, a lot of current sumo fans are grumpy bc they are not happy with the top-ranked wrestlers not being dominant enough. However, I like it, because I think it makes it interesting (I agree that Shodai is a disgrace, tho. wtf.)
scandal!
(ok, not really)
so, there was a nutty match today
What the hell was that? Chief gyoji Shikimori Inosuke has long been on my list of people who are not quite up to the task. Today he made an outrageous choice to stop the match between Terunofuji and Wakamotoharu at a pivotal moment of action because he was concerned that Wakamotoharu’s mawashi was loose. Folks may say that Inosuke should retire, but that would move Kimura Tamajiro up, and he’s even more of a shambles in my book. On the match mechanics, I do think that Terunofuji was honestly enjoying that match with Wakamotoharu, and was giving him a good and balanced battle with the intent of throwing him down once he had finished showing him how it’s done. Herouth goes into more detail in the post below this one, and it’s worth the read.
I’m not going to quote the second one.
I’ve never seen anything like this, and the gyoji should retire in shame. No, we don’t require these guys to do a ritual suicide, but can they at least note that maybe they shouldn’t be reffing anymore?
Too many old folks not taking a clue that they need to move on to other roles. Harrumph.
[Gen X giving the stinkeye to the Boomers]
This is the shit-show basho
About half the wrestlers are out due to COVID.
Congrats to Ichinojo! Woo!
And my favorite prize to the tourney winner is the giant macaron the govt of France gives for each sumo tournament:
There are a bunch of wacky sumo prizes like this
new sumo Youtube channel, sponsored by the official JSA
they hired one of NHK’s English-language hosts
Woo, a bunch of sumo swag from SumoKaboom!
I need to take some pics. I got a September 2019 bankzuke, which is nice. Hakuho & Kakuryu as yokozuna, and Tochinoshin & Takuyasu were ozeki (among others).
Ishiura & Enho were in Makuuchi.
very exciting!
This is a fun one – much smaller wrestlers beating bigger ones
Has some of my favorite “little guys” in there – esp. Ura, but not showing his sneakiest moves
September banzuke out!
sumo starts soon…
for the newbies…
to hide from delicate eyes
note: the white guy is Tochinoshin (there have been other white guys, but they’re retired)
not sure how much longer he’ll be around. He’s pretty old for a wrestler – 34
an extra for the newbies:
That’s Wakatakakage
yes, the announcers love competing with each other how rapidly they can say his name
his rank is currently sekiwake
that’s right – he’s sekiwake Wakatakakage
Hmmm, twitter embeds seem not to work anymore
Anyway, Ura is one of my fave wrestlers. I have one of his sumo cards, which I won via Sumo Bingo thanks to Sumo Kaboom! (my fave sumo podcast)
Just got my mind blown…
Ura’s autograph, whether in brush or in magic marker…
The top of the “U” and the top of the “RA” are Hiragana “u” う and “ra” ら.
Ura’s tegata:
Ura’s card: (not the one I have, which is a cheaper one)
