Down in Juryo, Kise-beya’s Shiden went up against Kayo and seems to have hurt his hurt knees on the way down. It doesn’t look great–he pulled out of the tournament and was taken to the hospital. This might be the end of his career–more updates when there are any from Kise-oyakata. Wishing him luck…

MATCH OF THE DAY: Atamifuji and Tamawashi’s bout today wasn’t incredible, but it was a good example of how good sumo is done by two good rikishi. Both young Atamifuji and wizened 41-year-old Tamawashi are popular and brought their all to the dohyo today; the two danced around but ended when Atamifuji ultimately outlasted Tamawashi. He shoved the older rikishi out by yorikiri and looked very satisfied with his sumo.

KIMARITE OF THE DAY: I would like to say that Ura won this award, but he gets his own column. The second place is Chiyoshoma in his defeat of giant Kazakh and Kise-beya boy, Kinbozan. The Mongolian paraded K-Bo around the ring and grabbed his arm when he wasn’t expecting it, tossing Kinbozan out. He won by tottari, an arm-barring force out.

PINK MAWASHI DAY ELEVEN: What a match! Ura activated my nervous system against Takayasu (who does not, by the way, seem hurt). Ura had a close call but got Takayasu up against the edge and sort of threw his body weight into him, which resulted in Takayasu stepping out. Because Ura’s hand ended up somewhere in the vicinitty of Takayasu’s thigh and the JSA knows who sumo fans are there to see, he ended up with a watashikomi. It was in no way a watashikomi–but there were style points, so maybe that’s it.

OVERALL SUMMARY: Midorifuji is on a katusakashi streak, and has evidently inspired Meisei, who also got an under-shoulder swing down. But moving on… Yoshinofuji took the win against Aonishiki, which I for one wasn’t expecting. He showed a startling amount of personality in his interview, which was very sweet. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone smile that much, even Ura or Takanosho. He seemed quite happy to be there and very happy, of course, with his results from the last two days. He just keeps getting better. Speaking of Takanosho, he danced backwards today and left Onosato sprawled across the clay without during… anything, really. He had one thrust into the Yokozuna’s throat and Onosato took himself out. I guess either those ankles are worse than he shows, or he was really rattled by Yoshinofuji yesterday, or he’s just having an off day? But losing to Takanosho by hikiotoshi is not what I foresaw. Now Hoshoryu, Onosato, and Aonishiki are even at nine wins, followed by the talented Yoshinofuji, his stablemate Nishikifuji, and Tokitsukaze-beya’s Tokihayate.

So far, Yoshinofuji has been Hoshoryu’s greatest ally in defeating Onosato and Aonishiki, but losing to Hosh. There’s not a lot of threatening people for him to fight now, as he fights Kotozakura tomorrow and then will only have the two mediocre Komusubi left to fight as of sanyaku. Aonishiki, Hoshoryu, and Onosato haven’t really been fighting any challenging opponents, with a few exceptions, so that could work in Yoshinofuji’s favor when they all fight each other. If I could pick any of these guys to win, it’d be Yoshinofuji, but Hoshoryu or Onosato probably has the best shot in reality. Tomorrow, the grind begins and Hosh will fight an interesting oppononent in Takayasu. Onosato takes on Sekiwake Oho and, oddly, Aonishiki will battle Oshoma. The poor guy has taken a beating this tournament.

In Makushita, the race has narrowed down to our two finalists: Oitekaze-beya’s Ryusho and my favorite, Kise-beya’s Kazuma. If Kazu wins, he’ll almost certainly take Shiden or Mita’s place in Juryo. Himukamaru is probably going to come down too, though the top of Makushita looks… grim. Fujiryoga is running away with it in Juryo; he’s two wins ahead of a four-man pack now. It’s hard to find coverage of the bottom three divisions, but I will talk about the winners in the Hall of Fame update. It does seem that the youngsters are rocking up the lower divisions, however.

Today’s fun fact is that once, in July 2020, there was a 5-way playoff in Juryo. The cool part is that it featured Hoshoryu and his stablemates: Makushita Akua and soon-to-be Juryo Maegashira 18 Meisei. Meisei actually walked away with the yusho, which does not reflect what happened to Hoshoryu’s future. But, you know, everyone makes mistakes.