Sunday Sumo: Graph Update, the Combat Wombat, and Luck for Ura!
Why over half the top wrestlers have a height measurement change?
It’s one week til the March 2023 Grand Sumo tournament!
Time for my height/weight graph update!
I want to point out two newcomers to the top ranks — Hokuseiho … kind of difficult to miss him at over 2 meters tall. He’s about 6’ 8” tall… that’s way tall.
At the opposite end of the scale, we’ve got a guy about the same weight, but much shorter - Bushozan. He’s about a foot shorter than Hokuseiho.
This is one of the most fun aspects of professional sumo - you get men of vastly different heights and weights wrestling against each other and it’s so much fun watching to see how they have to figure out different strategies in these situations.
Height Change?
One aside - while updating the data to do the graph, I noticed that for 20 out of 38 of the wrestlers in both the January and March top ranks, their height measurements changed a centimeter or more.
Now, a centimeter isn’t much — it’s less than a half inch — but 7 had a drop of a centimeter in height, 11 had a one-cm increase, 2 had a two-cm increase, and 1 had a three-cm increase.
I’ve never seen so many height changes between a single month — did they hire a new person to measure their heights?
I expect weight changes, but not height changes.
Sumo Prime Time!
Hiro Morita has been covering the newcomers for the Japan Sumo Association:
Go! Go! Takakeisho!
Those are the new guys, but many of us are also hoping that the sole Ozeki, Takakeisho, will be able to complete a Yokozuna run:
Other nicknames: the Combat Wombat, Cannonball, and I call him the Hippo as those are some really aggressive and deadly animals, though bulky and low to the ground.
Wishing Well for my Fave URA
My favorite wrestler, Ura, has a tendency of going up and down the ranks. You can see him in the graph between Tobizaru and Takakeisho.
He’s pretty gymnastic and has some sick moves.
Oh, and he’s really into pink.
Really looking forward to the Haru Basho!
