Hatsu Basho 2023: Time to Update the Sumo Scatterplot!
Plus, I detect a data bobble!
The Grand Sumo January Tournament started today, and I’ve got some graphs to update, some sumo bingo to play, and it’s anybody’s guess who will win.
Last year, a different wrestler won each of the 6 tournaments. With a crowded field just under the topmost ranks, it will be exciting to watch … it was in November, with a three-way playoff! I’m rooting for Takayasu, but as the SumoMemes subreddit community agrees:
A song to ganbarize!
In case you “missed” my very special holiday episode of the podcast, here are the lyrics of my sumo carol:
[to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”]
[written by both Meep & Stu]
God rest ye merry rikishi
Let nothing ye dismay
For ye shall bulk up heartily
Eating chanko–nabe
Make bad basho days
Oooo tidings of ganbatte; hakkeyoi!
Ooo tidings of ganbatte; hakkeyoi!
You may go to the link to hear me sing it, plus some extra sumo holiday art!
Sumo scatterplots
As per usual, I grabbed my Sumo Kaboom bingo card, grabbed my November stats and started updating.
Here is the full scatterplot:
I’m going to do a breakdown by the various groupings in a moment — Yokozuna is the highest, but Terunofuji is out this tournament due to surgery recovery. M16 is the lowest rank. I tried indicating rank by making the circles smaller for lower rank.
Histogram of weight changes November 2022 – January 2023
That said, I noticed something while updating the weight data (I do also check that the height didn’t change – it’s unlikely, but it has happened) – so first, let’s look at the histogram:
Unsurprisingly, over the holiday season, a lot of the guys put on weight. Most gained about 7 – 10 pounds, essentially. Yes, on purpose.
But look all the way to the right — 11 kilograms? That’s 24 pounds! That’s tough to do in two months!
The wrestler who supposedly gained 11 kgs was Wakamotoharu, and I went down a rabbit hole to see if I screwed up in November when I recorded his weight:
Okay, so the short version is this — back in November, the site said he was 135 kgs, which was low for him.
Not sure why he was unusually light for himself, but it does take work to maintain the sumo physique. Many wrestlers, after they retire, lose a lot of weight fairly rapidly, and some of the super-bulky guys shrink to rather normal-sized men within a few years.
Wakamotoharu had a pretty good record in 2022, though he had a losing record in July, so maybe he was a little off before the November basho. All I know is I need to get better at reading Japanese, because Google & Bing translate doesn’t work all that well on all the sumo news sites I go to.
The other possibility is that it was a manual entry screw-up, and it really should have said 145 kg. These numbers are entered into the “sumo database” manually – somebody could have just slipped up.
Now, you may think “What does this matter? There are no weight classes in sumo!”
Which is true — but it makes a huge difference in my graphs.
In any case, the current weight measurement for Wakamotoharu sounds correct – 146 kgs.
Sanyaku – the top ranks
Here are the tippy-top dudes:
Terunofuji will not be in this tournament, as noted, but look at his dot — he is BIG. He’s tall (about 6’4”) and MASSIVE (about 400 pounds).
(Not the most massive, that’s Ichinojo, who is also not going to be at Hatsu basho.)
The next down the banzuke is Ozeki Takakeisho — the Battle Hamster is SHORT – only 175 cm, or just scant of 5’9”. He’s also pretty hefty, at about 364 pounds.
To get to these levels, you have to beat a lot of guys. So yeah, mass helps….
But wait – what’s this? The next layer down are the Sekiwake, and we’ve got 4 guys all about in a 1-inch range of height from each other, in that they’re all about 6’ to 6’1” tall, but their weights differ quite a bit. From the lightest, Wakatakakage (brother of Wakamotoharu) who is about 300 pounds, up to the heaviest, Takayasu who is about 400 pounds. To get to Sekiwake, you have to also beat a lot of top guys. This is a ladder system. If you lose, you go down the ladder.
Below that are the Komusubi, who are more varied in height and weight.
One of the downsides of having the brothers up there together (and this isn’t about them being brothers, it’s about them being from the same stable) is that we won’t see them fight at a tournament unless it’s a playoff….
….but the last tournament ended in a playoff. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Upper Maegashira – M01-M08
I’m not going to have as much commentary on the lower levels, but…
As mentioned, Ichinojo is the most massive of the top wrestlers. Dude is about 470 pounds. He won one of the tournaments last year. He’s suspended this tournament for breaking COVID rules, but there are also other things going on…
In this set, Ura is my fave, and I’ve written about him before. He’s one of the little guys in stature, though not as small as Midorifuji who has just been crushing it with all his throws. I also love Tobizaru, whose name means “flying monkey”, tho we’ve been calling him “flying ape” of late.
I tend to prefer the small guys, because they can’t merely use their mass to shove the guy out of the ring, but tend to have to get tricky with throws or other moves. Ura in particular did some crazy moves last year that hadn’t been seen in decades.
Lower Maegashira – M09-M16
Even though they’re at the bottom, they’re the bottom of the top:
For now, I like looking at these scatterplots, and I may see if I can animate them, or do something where I can embed info like kimarite (the winning moves they use).
But I just wanted to see how height/weight and rank was laid out to begin with, then I can start layering in more info.
Hakkeyoi!
The bumzuke tells me it’s time to get going!
Time to watch some sumo!