It is done. The 2023 Aki Basho is wrapped and we have a winner. To find out who that is, head to Bloody Elbow where you’ll find full results, my analysis and lots of highlights (link).
As always, the final day saw lots of interesting storylines convene and then get resolved. And I certainly found a number of those resolutions quite pleasing.
All in all, I really enjoyed this tournament and I’m excited to dive deeper into what all went down.
Time to start work on my Report Card series!
Sometime next week I’ll send out an email asking for some feedback on Sumo Stomp! as well as an appeal for what kind of content you’d like to see here.
Thank you all for reading this Substack and my work on Bloody Elbow. I love covering sumo and I love doing so on this platform.
Bonus gif today is Kotonowaka, who was very under-the-radar this basho.
Announcement:
We at Bloody Elbow recently formed a partnership with RevGear, a California based company that makes martial arts/combat sports training gear and apparel. For next few months RevGear is giving Bloody Elbow (and, by extension, Sumo Stomp!) readers a store-wide 20% discount. If you’d like to pick something up you can use this link to get your discount (link).
Taking advantage of the discount helps generate income for Bloody Elbow and makes our sponsor feel great about working with us. So if you need training gear, or want a cool hoodie, please consider picking something up with that discount code.
RevGear are also working on some special Bloody Elbow merchandise. Maybe I can get some Sumo Stomp! gear, too…
(I’ll be copying and pasting this into each daily newsletter during the basho, sorry if that’s annoying — but it’s something that can help BE/Sumo Stomp!)