MATCH OF THE DAY: Ichiyamamoto! What a joy to be talking up his bouts. He makes a point to stare deeply into the eyes of every rikishi he can at any given time, which often results in a comment by Murray Johnson on the NHK broadcast. He went in with strong tsuppari against Roga but Roga resisted and grabbed his belt. Ichiyamamoto realized just how bad that idea was and dragged Roga back to the center. He deployed some excellent yotsu-zumo and got Roga out. His evolution this year has been impressive; he’s extremely willing and able to adapt, and it’s showing in his sumo. Wonderful to see him at 9-4 this basho. Roga, at 8-5, also put up a really good effort. Kudos to him.

KIMARITE OF THE DAY: I fought the urge to give it to Fujinokawa’s straightforward victory by tsukiotoshi because I love Fujinokawa and it was a great bout. However, that’s not fair, and also I remembered this fantastic bout. Veteran Sadanoumi obliterated giant youngster Shishi, lovingly embracing him and then using that strong neck grip to pull Shishi down. It hasn’t been the best tournament for him (4-9 record) but you would not have guessed that from his bout today. Sadanoumi’s kubihineri throw translates roughly to “neck and elbow force down.” As mentioned, Sadanoumi is 4-9, and Shishi moves to 5-8.

PINK MAWASHI DAY THIRTEEN: Ura took on a difficult opponent today in Hakuoho but ultimately prevailed. Ura resisted his pushes, turned around, and shoved Hakuoho out by an uwatedashinage that wasn’t really an uwatedashinage. But it’s Ura! And this was not remotely the dumbest call the JSA made today. He moves to 7-6 and will hopefully get his kachikoshi against Tobizaru tomorrow.

OVERALL SUMMARY: Today’s main movement in the yusho race was that ridiculous “win” of Onosato against Aonishiki. I am always hesitant to pull the “JSA-only-likes-the-young-Japanese-guys” card, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with suspicions after this bout. If there was a mono-ii, I would justify it and move on; but there was not a mono-ii, and it was a very close bout. The replay showed Onosato touched down first; the JSA calls the dead body rule far from consistently, and I would like to have a long conversation with Hakkaku about it. I would also like to congratulate Hoshoryu and Yoshinofuji on their brilliant wins against Kotozakura and Tokihayate respectively. And I’d like to congratulate Tokihayate on his amazing tournament even after he’s out of the yusho race. And I would like Ura to have a zensho-yusho with all three special prizes. There are a lot of things I would like.

I also like the torikumi for tomorrow. It’s going to be a killer final weekend; predictably, the final two bouts will be Onosato-Kotozakura and Aonishiki-Hoshoryu. Churanoumi takes on the Henkamaster (Taka, not Moto) and Kirishima takes on Tokihayate, in other bouts that I find interesting. Yoshinofuji, in what’s sure to be a fun one, fights Ichiyamamoto. And my personal highlight is Fujinokawa vs Asakoryu to kick things off; that’s going to be fun. The two young Maegashira really lit up the first week and then struggled a little more in the second; Asakoryu has his kachi-koshi to fight for and Fujinokawa no doubt wants to get up to 10-5 for a special prize. There’s a lot on the line there for both men.

Down in Makushita, there was great news for Kise-beya: young upstart Kazuma scored his third yusho, his first in Makushita. The Sandanme yusho was also decided today: younger upstart Kaki got his third straight yusho, which is incredibly impressive. Kazuma has got his ticket to Juryo, and Kaki is on his way to Makushita. The also-youthful Goseiryu scored the Jonokuchi yusho after some rough injuries took him out for three straight basho. He will be in Jonidan next tournament, just in time to get out of Asahifuji’s way as he blasts his way through the bottom divisions. Juryo will be decided tomorrow if Fujiryoga wins; and in a rare situation, Jonidan ended up with two 7-0 rikishi who are also members of the same stable. Ryuho and Kakueizan, the boys from Otowayama-beya, will face off in a playoff on Senshuraku. Otowayama-beya, notably, has rikishi in only three divisions, which is very odd: Kirishima in Makuuchi, two guys in Sandanme, and a cluster in Jonidan make up the entire stable. This will be a success story no matter who wins here.

Today’s fun fact is that Isegahama-beya sent out their young star to freak out the tsukebito today. Asahifuji took over the duties of Sandanme Onokura and was Midorifuji’s personal attendant for the day. Considering Ochiru has lived with the Isegahama boys since spring 2021, they probably know each other pretty well; I wonder if he’s been preparing to take this duty. Well, if he did anything dramatic, I haven’t heard about it–I’m sure he had a fun time hanging out with all the other attendants. Hopefully he was given a warm welcome by Kotodaishin, Lord of the Tsukebito. Love that guy.

Also, I typoed while writing this and would like to make an official pronouncement. I typed “youngstar” instead of “youngster” or “young star” to describe Asahifuji, and have decided to coin the term to refer to a group that currently consists of Onosato, Aonishiki, Hakuoho, Yoshinofuji, and Asahifuji. Thank you and good night.