The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Kyushu 2011 edition)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Kyushu 2011)

My previous blog dealt with the rikishi who had the best performances power ranking-wise at Kyushu. This blog looks at the rikishi who turned in good (forward moving) sumo, bad (henka) sumo, and ugly (non-forward moving sumo) .

The rikish who produced the best forward moving sumo totals at Kyushu are:

The Good

42 Hakuho (14-1)
36 Kotoshogiku (11-4)
35 Kotooshu (9-6)
34 Baruto (11-4)
33 Kisenosato (10-5)
33 Myogiru (10-5)

The Bad

The bad rikishi are those who were guilty of multiple henkas. All of these rikishi deserve a lump of coal in their stockings this holiday season:

7  Tokitenku

5  Kimurayama

4  Kyokutenho
4  Takekaze
4  Yoshikaze

3  Aminishiki
3  Aran
3  Sagatsukasa

2  Daido
2  Kokkai
2  Miyabiyama
2  Sadanofuji

Any way you slice it, Tokitenku’s seven henkas was a lot. Kimurayama and Takekaze’s sumo looked especially bad too. The only real surprise on this list is Miyabiyama, who appears to have added the henka to his diet (clearly his only diet, I might add) of push down and slap down sumo.  

The Ugly

I accept that for some rikishi non-forward moving sumo makes sense from time to time. However, if you score below double digits on my system you are simply stinking up the joint. The names on this list should come as no surprise:

-1  Kimurayama

For the first time doing this we have a minus score (for a rikishi who didn’t withdraw with an injury). That’s not easy to do. If I wrestled and simply moved forward at the tachi-ai for 15 days I’d end up being thrown off the dohyo 15 times and produce (presumably) a score of 0. Or, to put that score in perspective, I’d have one more point than Kimurayama ended up with at Kyushu. That truly is shocking. I hope Kimurayama never emerges from Juryo again.

5  Kokkai

7  Tokitenku
7  Kyokutenho
7  Aran

Kokkai was clearly injured (although he isn’t any good even when healthy). Kyokutenho was ranked too high; at 35 he can’t compete with the big dogs any longer, but should be fine lower down in the rankings. Tokitenku and Aran display poor form and cynical sumo tournament after tournament and it’s a crying shame.