And we’re off!
My Day 1 results, analysis, and highlights are available on The Fight Site right now! Check it out (link)
This is a new home for me, but it’s the same coverage you hopefully enjoyed over on Bloody Elbow (before that site was sold to a corporate content churner who wanted our name but nothing that made that name actually mean anything).
I want to thank Feño Sky at The Fight Site, who has welcomed me (and my sumo stuff) with open arms. I’m delighted to contribute to this site since I have had so many good experiences with folks who have spent time there. As an editor at BE I had the pleasure of working with Fight Site crew members Lukasz Fenrych, Miguel Class, Ben Kohn and Ed Gallo.
I also wrote a short preview of this tournament for Combat Press, you can see that here (link). Hopefully I can do some more content for that outlet in the near future.
Enough housekeeping, though, let’s talk about sumo.
Day 1 had some great bouts and some very interesting results. The most intriguing matches involved the yokozuna and the ozeki. That’s going to be the case each day of this tournament, with our winner likely to come from that cohort.
Outside of those bouts, I also really enjoyed Onosho vs. Tamawashi, Tobizaru vs. Takanosho and Kinbozan vs. Gonoyama.
Bonus gif of the day is Asanoyama from January. He looked like a contender then, will he look the same this month?
Not going to put any spoilers just on case anyone hasn't seen it yet. But what an incredible first day of action in Osaka. This is going to be an incredible tournament with a lot of twists and turns, you can just see.
Yeah, Day 1 didn't help me at all. I stayed out of Jason's contest this time; bc unlike most Day 1s, I couldn't get much of a read on anyone's potential over 15.
Asanoyama is at the dreaded tipping-point now, where the bodily soundness he once could rely on is slowly fading. If he's gonna get back up near the top again, he's gotta do it in the next 2-3 tourneys; or he's gonna be an 'ex-Ozeki' in the maeg ranks for the rest of his career.