So, tomorrow is the last day, senshuraku, of the Natsu Basho - the May tournament. I am of course talking professional sumo here. Those of you poor, innocent souls who have had their mornings/evenings/nights punctuated (and a little more than that, at times) by sumo chatter in the catbox may be happy to hear that it is ending. Some of you are not. Some of you actually profess to liking "the Sumo Hour" (named so by tentative).
So, if you do like sumo (and "Sumo Hour") here's what is at stake tomorrow, after some exciting bouts today:
- Yokozuna Hakuho and Ozeki Harumafuji both have a score of 13-1, after Ozeki Kotooshu, very beautifully and quite surprisingly, beat Hakuho today.
- Yokozuna Asashoryu and Maegashira Kisenosato both have 12-2, after Asashoryu, equally surprisingly, lost to Harumafuji (neither Rapscallion nor I saw that one coming)!
- So if Asashoryu wins his bout against Hakuho, Kisenosato wins his bout against Kakuryu (I think he does), and Harumafuji loses to Kotooshu (he might very well)... well, that gives us four sumotori on 13-2, and that is a very interesting situation.
When two wrestlers have the same score on the last day they go head to head in a play-off. I have only seen this once, a few years ago, namely in the 2007 Haru Basho, where Asashoryu and then Ozeki Hakuho both ended up with a 13-2 result. Hakuho won their final bout and collected the grand prize: The Emperor's Cup (for the second time in his career). But I, personally, haven't seen a case of four wrestlers being tied, and I sure would love to!
So here's hoping for a very exciting last day, and then I promise that you poor catboxers will have peace. For another almost two months. The next basho, the July basho (Nagoya Basho) starts while I'm in Oregon, just as HD6 is ending. So I'll be sumo chatting from the US for the first couple of days.
Thanks for your patience - and here are some awesome nodes for y'all.