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2016 Nagoya Pre-basho Report
I've
been bumping around Nagoya the past few days, and while my visit has nothing to
do with the Nagoya basho, I can't help but notice signs in the city that the
basho is upon us. There was the sumo dude at the train station across the
platform from me, and then when visiting the Nagoya Castle, which is situated
next door to the venue, I snapped a quick photo of the drum tower and the
official announcement board of the basho next to the East entrance, and then I
couldn't help but glance over at the Aichi Prefecture gymnasium to observe the
preparations for the tournament. It reminded me of all those years ago when I
was living in Fukuoka, and the sumos would set up camp at the end of October in
preparation for the Kyushu basho. You knew they were in town when the stables
set up their various flags outside of the heya facilities, and on my daily bus
ride into town, I'd pass the Musashigawa-beya (now the Fujishima-beya run by
Musoyama) and know that they were here. While my days of stalking the rikishi
and actually attending the basho are long gone, I still never tire of those
memories that began in the early nineties.
I
suppose it's those memories that actually keep me interested in the sport today
because the quality of sumo and the rampant yaocho these days certainly isn't
what's keeping me around. So, in order to avoid talking about the rikishi for as
long as possible, let's start off this pre-basho analysis with talk of the
government, or as Clancy and I affectionately refer to it: the gumment. On
paper, the role of the gumment is to provide for the safety and well-being of
its people, and so the people pay taxes to the government in good faith that
such services will be rendered. In reality, a government's first priority is to
preserve its own power and authority, and the actual citizens who fund the
government are more of an annoyance, and any bones thrown their way are merely
done in order to get votes.
I first learned this lesson in my early twenties when I began working for the
city government in Fukuoka, Japan. My office had an annual budget of about $4
million (USD), and the sole purpose of our activities was to spend every single
yen by March 31st (the end of the fiscal year), so we could get an equivalent
budget the next year and hopefully more. Now, on the surface, we did provide
some services that benefited the citizens of Fukuoka, but I would estimate that
80% of everything else we did was a complete waste of time, and the sole
purposes of these meaningless events were to 1) make it look as if we were doing
something useful, and 2) spend as much of the budget as possible, so we would
could get it all next year.
I had never heard of the word "symposium" before working in Japan, but my office
was expert at planning them and spending upwards of a million dollars apiece
just to hold one. According to Google, the first definition of a symposium is "a
conference or meeting to discuss a particular subject," and I would add "that
nobody gives a rat's ass about." We held symposiums on such stellar topics as
"The Diversity of Comic Strip Writers in Asia" and "The Struggles of
International Journalists in Asia." Each of these symposiums was attended by
maybe 100 people who looked a lot like...well, they looked a lot like the usual
crowd on any day of a basho. Probably 20 people came of their own volition
because they had nothing better to do, and then the other 80 were people from
other offices in the city gumment that we begged to come.
I learned quickly that the different offices within the city gumment would ask
each other for people to attend their own sponsored events because they always
called our office saying, "Hey, can you have that gaijin there come and view our
art exhibit on 'How Foreign Exchange Students View Sakura' at such and such a
time and place? We're going to have the Nishi Nihon Shimbun there taking
pictures." What was never spoken but implied after that was "And we'd like to
project the appearance of diversity by having a white guy view the artwork along
with all the old people there." I would gladly go because it got me out of the
office, and they'd give me two taxi tickets to get to the venue and back, and
I'd of course hop on the subway both ways and use the taxi tickets late on a
weekend night instead when I was out and about after all of the buses had ended
their runs.
Without going into further detail, I quickly realized two points: 1) "Wow, this
gumment business is all such a sham," and 2) "I gotta get me a gumment job when
I go back home!!"
I only start with this because the people of Fukuoka dutifully pay their taxes
in good faith that the city government is being fiscally responsible, but the
actual reality is that the real return on investment is probably 20% with the
other 80% being completely wasted all in an effort for the government workers to
keep their jobs and keep the money rolling in. In the back of their minds, the
citizens of Fukuoka know that a good chunk of tax payer money is wasted, but
it's a topic that people don't like to think about consciously and so they file
it away in the back of their minds and just accept it for what it is. And
it isn't just a problem in Japan. The whole time I used to work here, I'd think
to myself, does this happen in the U.S. government as well? It didn't take me
too long to figure out after returning home that it does, and perhaps the only
thing more difficult than being force-fed this nonsense of Kisenosato being a
Yokozuna candidate is scratching that check each April and sending it to the
gumment.
So how does this apply to sumo? All fans of any given sport enter their fandom
in good faith that what they are seeing play out in the arena is real and
legitimate. The general media outlets cover the sport, which appears to give it
even more legitimacy, and no one wants to ever think that the wool is being
pulled over their eyes whether it's government waste and mismanagement or fixed
bouts in sumo. So while most people approach a basho in good faith that what
will be presented to them is real, it will only take one day of bouts to realize
that we're stuck in this same old rut.
As for the 80-20 ratio, I'm not saying that 80% of sumo bouts are fixed, but I
am suggesting that only 20% of the rikishi in the Makuuchi division (it's
probably less than that) will NOT be involved in any sort of bout fixing over
the two weeks. As a result, it's just useless for me to break down the
individual rikishi any more, so let's focus more on the headlines.
Garnering the most ink is Ozeki Kisenosato with every headline containing the
phrase "tsuna-tori," or quest for the Yokozuna rank. In reading the comments
from various officials within the Association, it sounds as if the consensus is
that Kisenosato must take the yusho in order to be considered. They made sure
that Kotoshogiku would end his career with at least one career yusho, and I'd be
shocked if they didn't do the same for Kisenosato. The only question is when are
they going to do it? I have read some speculation where this will be
Kisenosato's last chance at the Yokozuna rank, so on one hand you'd think now is
as good'a time as any, but if you make this dude a Yokozuna, you'll have to
sustain him at the rank until he retires, and that's quite a tall order. For
that reason, I don't anticipate Kisenosato's taking the yusho this basho, but as
I say all the time now: nothing in sumo surprises me anymore.
Standing in Kisenosato's way of course is every rikishi ranked M3 or higher
except for Mitakeumi. Yes, I think Kisenosato is actually better than Mitakeumi,
but he's an underdog against everyone else he'll fight. Yet, he should come away
at the end of this basho with 12 wins or more, so let's just watch it all play
out.
Yokozuna Hakuho comes in second place in terms of headlines, and the focus has
mostly been on his coming into the basho with 987 career wins. He'll look to
become the third rikishi in history to score 1,000 wins, so if my maths are
correct, a 13-2 record would sill the dill. The trend the last two basho has
been Hakuho skating to the yusho, and if that's what he wants to do again here
in Nagoya, then that's what he'll do. There's no sense in my trying to predict
what he's going to do, so let's just watch and see what he chooses to do. If he
does go the distance and take the yusho, it'll be his career 38th. Just think of
it...Hakuho has more career yusho than Endoh has legitimate Makuuchi wins in his
17 tournaments!
Once you get beyond Kisenosato and Hakuho, the headlines have really been slim
pickings. It doesn't matter anyway as Harumafuji and Kakuryu won't fight at full
strength the full fortnight, and Kotoshogiku and Goeido are only better than
Mitakeumi when it comes to jo'i rikishi.