Sumo Fan Magazine

Amateur Sumo – the sport as it should be Mark Buckton Sakai World Sumo Champs – not all about winning Las Vegas Koen Joe Kuroda Our man reports from the fight capital of the world Rikishi of Old Joe Kuroda A look at a rikishi of yesterday with Kotozakura – our man for October Heya Peek John Gunning John’s early morning dash to Azumazeki-beya & report on TKOTU SFM Interview Katrina Watts sits down with SFM’s Mark Buckton to discuss amateur sumo Photo Bonanza SFM’s best yet – Aki Basho/ Las Vegas / Amateur World Champs / Azumazeki-beya visit – seen nowhere else Aki Basho Review Lon Howard Lon gives us his Aki Basho summary, along with the henka sightings results, and his take on the tournament while ‘gem’ of the basho takes a break Lower Division Rikishi Mikko Mattila Mikko Mattila returns to cover lower division ups and downs Kyushu Basho Forecast Pierre Wohlleben & Mark Buckton Pierre predicts the Kyushu Basho banzuke while Mark previews the ones to watch next time out Sumo 101 Barbara Ann Klein Discovers and explains amasumo & ozumo variations Kimarite Focus Mikko Mattila Mikko once again walks us through his chosen kimarite Minusha John McTague John’s unique bimonthly view of news from outside the dohyo Online Gaming Zenjimoto of ‘game fame’ covers some of the very best sumo games around – his own! Kokugi Connections Todd Lambert Todd’s focus on 3 of the most interesting online sumo sites today Fan Debate Is the limit on foreign rikishi fair? See what our debaters had to say SFM Cartoons Benny Loh In the first of our cartoon bonanzas, sit back and chuckle at Benny Loh’s offerings Let’s Hear From You What was it that made you a sumo fan? Gernobono tells all Readers’ Letters See what SFM readers had to say since our last issue Sumo Quiz The Quizmaster Answer the Qs and win yourself next basho’s banzuke.	Henka Sightings Summary by Lon Howard		surprising to me: Saint Kotonowaka was hit on four times and was 0-4 in those matches. Only four other rikishi were targets more than once, specifically two cases each. What might be the most telling statistic for many fans is the fact that, in the 28 matches with henka, the perpetrator won 21 of them, for a 75% win rate. You can’t tell much with only two basho and admittedly in some cases a match beginning with henka lasts long enough for the henka effect to ‘wear off’, but even with that a 75% win rate would be most informative. The Excel database for all this is of course updated every basho and after a whole year of action is in the books, it will be available on the Henka Sightings page. With only two basho down, it’s still quite scanty so we’ll wait until then to publish it. Thanks to all who voted – and pitch in your votes when you can for Kyushu. Lon Howard Fan Liaison Director Home
	Our Henka Sightings effort now has two basho under its belt, so let’s see if anything of interest or relevance has surfaced so far. As far as we know, this is the first attempt to actually record henka for history and your votes are what determines what history will record. No one had a vested interest in how things came out, so the only thing that could have possibly ‘colored’ the outcome in the first two months is fairly light voting on some days. For Nagoya and Aki, your diligent nominator saw fit to nominate 25 and 49 matches respectively for possible henka action. I was quite liberal, nominating some that I thought would have no chance of getting even one vote, but of the 74 total nominations there were only four such matches; so there appears no reason to alter those liberal standards. Of the 74 nominations, only 28 received the necessary majority	vote for validation, so the fans as a whole appear to have some exacting standards for making the henka call. The 28 henkas were perpetrated by 18 rikishi with Takanowaka leading the way so far with 4, followed by Ishide with 3. Those with two were Hakurozan, Hokutoriki, Kyokutenho, Roho and Wakatoba. Completely absent from the database so far is Tochiazuma, with nary a nomination – but we only have two basho of data at this point. Two rikishi have interesting records already. Toyozakura has the most nominations (7) but not a single one has been validated by the fan voting, while Takanowaka doesn’t mess around when he decides to do it because all four of his nominations have gotten the thumbs up – three were unanimous while the fourth only had one No vote. The most common target among the 28 henkas was