Poll: Who gets the Sumo Stomp! spotlight in January?
Tell me who I should be tracking closely during the next tournament.
The January tournament is almost upon us. And I’m itching to get back to work covering the first basho of the year for everyone here (and those who read my work over on Bloody Elbow).
I’m planning the same form of coverage I used last year; short daily (and spoiler-free) updates alerting you to analysis that has dropped on BloodyElbow.com and then wrap up articles grading each makuuchi wrestler’s performance.
I’m also going to be doing a deep dive on one wrestler from the January tournament, like I did with Kyushu last year. Ahead of the November tournament we held a vote to see which wrestler would get a dedicated post on them after the tournament was over. Takakeisho won that poll and that resulted in my What went wrong? article.
Let’s do that again!
Below is a poll where you can vote on which wrestler I’ll track throughout the tournament and analyze once it’s all said and done.
For this poll I’ve picked Kirishima (who could lock up a yokozuna promotion if he wins), Hoshoryu (who probably really wants to stop Kirishima from winning), Midorifuji (who may have put it all together), Ura (who is debuting in the san’yaku) and Onosato (the next much-hyped rookie to hit makuuchi).
I’d be delighted to write a deep dive on any of these characters. The prospect of trying to breakdown Ura’s bizarre and incredible offence is very appealing, though.
Substack polls only allow for five options, so if you want to pick someone else, write them in on the comments.
This poll will run for a week.
Right now I’m hard at work on the remaining report cards for Kyushu, looking to get those to you by the middle of next week.
Then I have a preview for the Hatsu Basho I have to write for Bloody Elbow. I’ll also be appearing on The Level Change podcast to preview that tournament.
I’ve agreed to do three appearances on The Level Change during tournaments going forwards. If you haven’t already, you can check out those pods over on The Bloody Elbow Podcast Substack (bonus points if you can place my garbled hybrid accent).
Happy 2024 all and, as always, thank you for reading and supporting this publication. I can’t wait to see what sumo has in store for us this year!
on the verge of ascending to top rank, kirishima is the obvious timely option
Kirishima