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2016 Aki Post-basho Report
Clancy
and I were texting the final weekend of the basho reliving some of the good ole
days of Sumotalk, and some of the old gags, and one of the best ones we had
running for several years was that all of the contributors were flown to Japan
each basho and holed up in a hotel for two weeks so we could focus on the basho
commentary. Tournament after tournament we pretended as if we were all staying
in the same hotel until it just became a normal part of Sumotalk. As implausible
and outlandish as that scenario and some of the tales we used to spin were, I
would still have people email me asking, "Do you guys really stay in a hotel?"
If someone used sound reason and logic, there is no way that a web hosting
company would shell out $50K US to house numbskulls like us in a Japanese hotel
every other month, but we all repeated it over and over and pretended as if it
was reality, and so for quite a few of the readers, they began to accept it as
such.
I liken this phenomenon to the man-made climate change that seems to be all the
rage these days. Prior to the term climate change, it used to be called global
warming, but since the globe is in fact not warming, a more generic term was
coined in climate change. Now, weather patterns and the temperature of the earth
is not static by any means, but to think that mankind actually has the ability
to control the weather and cause the sea levels to rise is preposterous. The
oceans cover what...two thirds of the earth? Think of the amount of water it
would take to make the oceans rise even a foot. Where is that water going to
come from? I hear politicians say that cities are going to be under water in the
future. Now, step back and think about that. What cities are going to be under
water??
If
anyone watched the Summer Lympics recently, then you undoubtedly saw stellar
shots of Rio de Janeiro, so here's my question: when is that city going to be
immersed in water? I know, I know, the "accepted climate science" is out there,
and if somebody paid me a grant of $250K per year, you can bet that I'd be
producing numbers to give the climate change folks stiffies as well, but that
whole movement is a complete fraud that defies common sense...and real science.
And yet, the majority of you are already feeling defensive after that statement
because it's been pounded and pounded into your brains by seemingly credible
sources, and so like the hotel gag, people just began to accept it as real.
The human psychology of that sort of phenomenon is depicted well in the classic
Hans Christian Andersen folk tale, The Emperor's New Clothes. To steal directly
from WikiPedia:
A vain Emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying clothes
hires two weavers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric
invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "hopelessly stupid". The
Emperor's ministers cannot see the clothes themselves, but pretend that they can
for fear of appearing unfit for their positions and the Emperor does the same.
Finally the weavers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and
the Emperor marches in procession before his subjects. The townsfolk play along
with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid.
Then a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping
up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the
cry is taken up by others. The Emperor suspects the assertion is true, but
continues the procession.
And that procession not only continues in today's version of sumo, but it's
getting stronger and stronger as seen by the two yusho this year from Japanese
Ozeki. Now, I think that 99% of the people realize and accept that there is at
least a small amount of bout fixing going on in sumo. The low extreme would be
someone letting up for a 7-7 guy on senshuraku who needs kachi-koshi or letting
up for an Ozeki whose 7-7 just so he doesn't go kadoban. That kind of yaocho is
universally accepted I believe, but the opposite extreme would be Itai and his
declaration that on some days, up to 80% of the bouts are fixed on a given day.
A lot of people have criticized us ST writers over the years because we've never
strapped on the mawashi, but Itai has, and he was right in the middle of it.
Itai's claims are a lot more credible than my claims and anybody else's claims
who just blogs or comments on the internet.
According to Itai, he was one of the main dudes who brokered all of the bout
fixing and kept tabs on who owed who money. His Makuuchi career coincided with
the rise of the late Chiyonofuji, and when you talk to Japanese people who
watched sumo back in the 80's, they all know about the yaocho rumors surrounding
that former Yokozuna. In 1990, the then Rijicho, Wakanohana, secretly sent out a
recording on a cassette tape to all of the stables where he just railed on the
rikishi for their current brand of sumo. He told them that if they kept the
shenanigans up that the fans were going to start abandoning the sport. Now, I
would love to listen to the entire tape, but I only heard a minute or two of it
played on NHK of all places back when sumo was mired in that yaocho scandal
about five years ago.
I like to think that I'm going through the same sort of emotions that Wakanohana
went through back then. Of course, my livelihood and integrity doesn't depend on
the content of sumo bouts, but his did, and I can completely understand why he
thought it necessary to send out such a warning to all of the stables. While my
days of watching sumo actively would come a few years after that cassette tape
was produced, I'm pretty sure that what we're seeing right now in sumo resembles
what was occurring back in the late 80's and early 90's that got Wakanohana so
riled up. And the guy in the middle of it all back then was Itai according to
his claims.
When Itai first came out after the 2000 Hatsu basho, it really bothered me
because nobody wants to think that the wool is being pulled over their eyes. At
the time, I accepted that 7-7 rikishi would receive favors; I accepted that
Ozeki would receive preferential treatment in order to hold onto their rank; and
I even accepted that guys friendly to each other would let up for each other in
the heat of a yusho race so as to not upset anything. But 80%?? It sounded
unbelievable to me then, and it still sounds high to me now, but there are days
when I comment where I think that more than half of the bouts are fixed.
The current circumstances surrounding sumo unfortunately call for an extremely
high level of bout fixing in order to keep the Japanese fans interested, and
judging by the attendance numbers at the tournaments this year, it's only going
to get worse.
Turning our attention specifically to the Aki basho, it was a surprise to me
that Goeido was the one to take the yusho, but it definitely wasn't a surprise
that we had another Japanese yusho so soon. By orchestrating that yusho in
January for Kotoshogiku on the 10 year anniversary of the last Japanese yusho,
it meant that in order to give more credibility to the yusho, it would have to
happen again soon. Suddenly out of nowhere, Kisenosato and Goeido both enjoyed a
sudden resurgence at the Haru basho that followed Kotoshogiku's victory, and
then more tired talk of Yokozuna promotion for Kisenosato carried the fans
through to September where Goeido seemingly rose up from nowhere and not only
took the yusho, but posted a 15-0 record in the process!
My opinion is that Goeido's yusho run this basho was not orchestrated from the
beginning. Rather, I think that people knew he was kadoban coming in, and so the
timing just worked out to where his opponents that first week weren't desperate
for wins of their own, and so they gave the Ozeki the freebie. Then, when Goeido
and Okinoumi met up on day 7 as the two undefeateds, the whole senpai-kohai
thing dictated that Goeido would win, and Okinoumi was obligated to let up for
him. When Yoshikaze and Aoiyama let up for him on days 8 and 9 respectively, the
headlines started to appear that another Japanese yusho was likely, and none of
the other oyakata or the three Mongolians wanted to disrupt the party. And so
there you have it. The most hapless Ozeki in memory who even had a losing record
from that rank through the Hatsu basho this year defies all of the odds...and
sound logic...to post a perfect tournament on paper.
On several days during the tournament, I repeated that "what do you see?" theme,
and I specifically focused on Kisenosato as a Yokozuna hopeful and Takayasu as
an Ozeki hopeful. I didn't see anything from those two that impressed me, and it
goes without saying that I saw no change in Goeido's sumo either to warrant a
zensho yusho. On the days when I called his bouts, I called yaocho every day
except his bout against Kisenosato on day 11, and as I go back and watch his
bouts from the basho, I just don't see the effort from his opponents. Everyone
let's him get to the inside, and nobody tries to counter near the end. Then,
when he gets to the biggest bout of the basho against Harumafuji on day 13, what
does he do? He runs like a leedle girl. Is that a zensho rikishi?? On senshuraku
against Kotoshogiku, I could actually see the Geeku instinctively load on a
counter left tsuki to Goeido's right side, but he never followed through on it.
That's not to say that it would have worked and that the Geeku would have beaten
him; it is to say, however, that he didn't even go for the move, which is
mukiryoku sumo, and so to sum up Goeido's basho, the majority of the guys let
him get to the inside, and they never tried to counter once he was there. I can
unequivocally go Itai and say that the fix was in for at least 80% of Goeido's
bouts this basho.
The result is the first Osaka rikishi to yusho in 86 years, and NHK milked the
sentimental aspect of the yusho for all it was worth...as they should have. On
day 14 when the yusho was inevitable, they had a crew stationed at the Neyagawa
City Hall (Goeido's hometown) where they had about 100 folding cheers set up for
the citizens of the community to come and watch Goeido clinch the yusho. At they
start of the broadcast, they showed a scene from inside the city hall, and try
and guess what type of people were dutifully sitting in the chairs. Let me put it this way: when crooks scan people out of
their money and property, what type of person are they focused on? You go after
the gullible, and those are the people sitting in those chairs, and those are
the fans that follow the sport religiously. Later on in the broadcast,
they went back to the same scene, and they showed a dude sitting front and
center at the city hall who turned out be the president of Goeido's fan club.
After Goeido clinched the yusho, the dude was just weeping there on the front
row, and I was like, "Yeah, if I was forced to serve as the president of
Goeido's fan club all these years, I'd be crying like a baby too...and not
because he just won the tournament."
Let's
move next to Yokozuna Harumafuji, who became the default storyteller in Hakuho's
absence. I know a lot of people believe that I don't think a Japanese rikishi
could ever beat Harumafuji, but that's not quite the case. Remember in Dumb and
Dumber when Mary told Lloyd that the chances of them ever getting together was
one in a million? And then Lloyd's classic response, "So you're saying there's a
chance!" Alright, it's definitely not one in a million, but realistically, it is
more like one in thirty. Still, when you see Harumafuji lose as he did in the
picture at left, it's obvious that he is taking a dive. I mean, show me one
other bout this entire basho that ended like that day 3 loss against Okinoumi
Ob-Gyn.
The moment I saw that, I knew that Harumafuji was willing to play ball this
basho and at least keep the yusho race close. His ending up on his back as the
result of a PULL DOWN against Takayasu was another dive, and then that twisting
number at the hands of Goeido from a kubi-nage with no hips or lower body
involved was pure comedy.