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SFM’s historian, JK, wraps his two-part article on the greatest of the tsuna wearers
What exactly is it and furthermore, what does it do? The ISF explain themselves and their purpose in existing
Man or myth? Sumo's first yokozuna comes under the spotlight
Tokitsukaze-beya and its famous find themselves the target of Barbara's peek into life inside the heya
Featuring interviews with amateur sumo's European Sumo Union General Secretary and the President of the newly founded Irish Sumo Federation
Would chanko exist without sumo? What is chanko anyway? Find out in Sumo 101
Basho through the eyes of the fans in the seats as SFM gives the mantle of photographer(s) for this basho to Barbara & Gerald Patten. And don't miss our all-Mongolian Bonanza supplied by our Editor, Barbara Ann Klein
Lon gives us his Haru Basho summary, along with the henka sightings results
Mikko Mattila covers the lower division goings on like nobody else around
Mark Buckton glances back to look forward in his ones to look out for come May
Our man Mikko takes us on a tour of his chosen kimarite
Our gaming thread takes a break for April so we can look at the Spanish language book on the sport not long since released
Todd’s bimonthly focus on 3 of the WWW's best sumo sites today
April's man VS monkey debate covers the issue of reducing the number of honbasho
Sit back and enjoy the offerings
made you a sumo fan? Thierry Perran lets us in on his reasons for loving this sport
See what our featured letter is for this issue
Sumo Quiz
The Quizmaster
Answer the Qs and win yourself next basho’s banzuke.
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have not been a common sight, and even less so, celebrating a yusho. Hardly anyone could have predicted that in the sandanme division, the yusho would be taken by a representative of this rare class of over 200kg rikishi. Twenty-three year-old Maeta (whose latest weight data suggests he has now gone below 200kg) had a couple of mediocre
4-3 records in sandanme before suddenly storming to a convincing 7-0 yusho. Georgian
Tsukasaumi didn’t find sandanme too difficult to handle and disposed of all his foes before meeting Maeta in a yusho-deciding bout. Maeta
crushed Tsukasaumi in that match with a rare kimetaoshi (arm barring force down). As is often the case, there was a large number of rikishi with 6-1 records. Basically all of them, Tsukasaumi excluded, have been low makushita/sandanme rikishi for some basho already. One athletic prospect, however, was Ikioi who bounced back from a low-tuned Hatsu Basho with a good 5-2 at Sd21. Curiously, all his wins came by throwing techniques (kotenage, shitatenage, uwatenage). Kokonoe-beya’s Chiyonishiki is slowing down, division by division, on his comeback trail, and finished with a 5-2 at Sd61.
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Hungarian Masutoo had a disastrous Hatsu Basho with a 0-7 record while suffering from a bad ankle, but he appeared to be in better shape this time achieving a respectable 5-2.
Masutoo
Hatsu Basho jonidan yusho winner, Yuminosato, started out
shakily losing his first two bouts, but recovered enough to get a 4-3 kachi-koshi at Sd17.
Once again, the makushita division had a surprise yusho winner, while higher-ranked young prospects and rikishi who were just demoted from juryo evened out their scores, enabling lower ranked makushita rikishi to sneak from the shadows all the way to the yusho. Kotoyutaka, a 24 year-old from Sadogatake-beya, is virtually an
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unknown name, but he earned his yusho by beating all remaining lower makushita undefeated rikishi, one by one. Four 6-1 rikishi suffered their only losses against Kotoyutaka. These rikishi included Surugatsukasa, a big makushita rikishi who has found his place in this division;
Kadomoto, who is a formidable prospect and viable to compete at high makushita already; Nakanishi, who was very
dominating at the start of his career, experienced a bizarre
slump, but is now back on a more promising path with a good makushita debut at Ms54; and, 22 year-old Yakigaya, Ms43, of Onomatsu-beya.
Dewaotori secured his promotion to juryo with a simple 4-3 record at Ms1. It took him a bit longer than expected to get to sekitori, but he is only 20 years-old and has talent. Working on his tachi-ai and overall explosiveness should be high on his agenda now, since he still appears to encounter problems against hard-charging “oshi” (pushing) rikishi when he loses the tachi-ai. The bow twirler, Oga, has spent quite a few basho at
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