Sunday Sumo: May Tournament Wrap-Up -- Who Was Most Unique?

Yes, yes, I know it's a solecism. You know what I mean... or do you?

May 29, 2023

The Natsu Basho, or May 2023 Grand Sumo Tournament, wrapped up today!

Congrats to Terunofuji, the kaiju Yokuzuna, for winning the whole ka-bang a day before it closed!

It was a super-exciting tournament, even if the question of winner got settled a day early. Many of us were looking to see if we got a new ozeki… and there was other sumo news in the offing!

Congrats to all getting promoted!

I’m not sure we’ve heard about all the sumo promotions yet, but several are already known (and some demotions are surely going on as well… that is the sumo way).

But let me focus on two wrestlers — Kiribayama (and I have my own prize to give to him today) and Ochiai/Hakuoho!

Kiribayama was in the running for winning the tournament… until he ran into Terunofuji:

https://twitter.com/TheSumoSoul/status/1662410806527418373

Here on substack, you’re just going to have to click through to Twitter to see that match-up. (On old STUMP, the tweet will embed.)

That was the match that sealed Terunofuji’s tournament win. But, even though it was a loss, it may have shown that Kiribayama deserved promotion to ozeki rank.

Kiribayama also won his match today, but he had enough wins over three tournaments to prove ozeki promotion, and losing well also shows that he deserves the promotion.

So yay to Kiribayama!

Ochiai (no longer) is a lower-level wrestler, who is part of Miyagino stable, which is overseen by ex-Yokozuna Hakuho — remember that name.

Sumo: Record-holding grand champion Hakuho to retire — He’s the GOAT. Don’t you forget it.

Names in sumo can change, and most sumo wrestlers pick up a shikona, a name they wrestle under, different from their legal names.

Ochiai’s legal name is Tetsuya Ochiai — that is, in America, his first name would be Ochiai and his last name would be Tetsuya.

When wrestlers get to paying levels (Juryo & Makuuchi), sometimes they’ll switch their shikonas, which is what Ochiai has done… to Hakuoho.

Note — it’s not Hakuho, but Hakuoho.

It’s bad enough we’ve got an Oho and Onosho, and a Nishikigi and Nishifuji. That’s not to mention the three brothers: Wakatakakage, Wakamotoharu… and the other one. (Sorry, other one.)

Anyway, congrats to Hakuoho!

Who is most unique in his winning ways?

At the beginning of the tournament, I made the following prediction:

If you recall, I wrote about kimarite last week.

I happened to be wrong about my prediction, for what it’s worth.

I just updated my kimarite spreadsheet for Natsu Basho — just looking at the Makuuchi wrestlers, these are the top 10:

Well, that puts my boy Ura down with those at #9, with only 6 different kimarite.

Congrats to Kiribayama for his versatility, and here are his 10 winning moves (out of his final winning score of 11-4 — he used yorikiri twice):

(Yes, that’s a snapshot of a pivot table.)

Other definitions of uniqueness

Okay, I still wanted my man Ura to win re: kimarite in some way (and I definitely knew one way in which he could win, which I could fall back on).

So maybe — Ura used moves that nobody else in Makuuchi used in this tournament?

Well, yes, but so did three other men.

Chiyoshoma (henka king!) used uwatehineri and hikakke. Nobody else in Makuuchi won with those moves.

Onosho used watashikomi and okuritaoshi.

Ura used zubuneri and tottari. (I love tottari, but it’s an unusual winning move according to the sumo database — only 0.2% of all wins. But 4% of Ura’s wins)

Wakamotoharu used kirikaeshi and utchari. Wakamotoharu is on an Ozeki run, and I like seeing that he’s using unique kimarite. It definitely reduces some of the pain that his brother, Wakatakakage, is not around and is likely to fall way down the banzuke while out with serious injury.

I swear, I’m gonna make Ura a winner

Look, Ura is a winner. Here he is winning the lightweight amateur sumo championship in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2013:

(He was teeny back then)

So let’s look more closely at that zubuneri that Ura used against Tobizaru on day 12:

One of the best parts was the look on Tobizaru’s face after he lost — he was smiling with a “What the hell was that?!?” kind of look. Both Tobizaru and Ura are known for their trickiness, so you know Tobizaru (which literally means flying monkey) really was thinking “Man, I gotta try that one.”

Ura is known for pulling out moves nobody else does, like izori. Anyway, I will need to push an analysis of how unusual Ura’s winning moves are for another time. Because they are really unusual.

Anyway, the zubuneri hadn’t been seen in Makuuchi for 25 years.

So I’m going to give Ura an award for being unique, even so.

Thanks, Ura!