Congrats to Kirishima! Profile of November 2023 Grand Sumo Tournament Winner
A little unusual... but not that unusual
Congrats (once again) to Ozeki Kirishima, with his second tournament win in 2023!
Ooops, how did that get there?
Let’s take a look at Kirishima’s profile, as I did some other rikishi (and I will be doing some other Yokozuna… I mean, I will look at some retired Yokozuna while we wait for the next tournament, and think about prospective Yokozuna(s)….).
Kirishima Rank and Weight Graph, Jan 2022 - Nov 2023
Pretty steady rise in both rank and weight.
He is a little light compared to some other top-rankers:
I note he’s about the same weight as short guys like Ura, and lighter than guys like Takakeisho… Kirishima may be fairly tall, but he’s not really that bulky.
That has some effects on his sumo (and Hoshoryu definitely has the same effects.)
Kirishima’s Kimarite Profile and Hellinger Metric
Here are Kirishima’s top 10 kimarite, and how they compare to the sumo database percentages as well as his losing percentages to those kimarite.
Kirishima isn’t all that different from the rest with respect to winning via yorikiri, but you can see his oshidashi percentage is very low.
What you’re seeing is that he gets hands on the belt (yorikiri), but he’s not a pusher/thruster, which is what you’d expect from a light guy. He’s doing more throws than frontal shoves. And you can see it in the stats.
Some notable differences from overall averages —
okuridashi - rear push out - get the guy turned around, and then shove him out
uwatenage - overarm throw. BOOM!
sukuinage - beltless arm throw
The Hellinger metric for Kirishima is 8.72%, and out of the Makuuchi guys, he’s about #17 out of 42 (I haven’t recalculated for everybody after the tournament yet).
Approximate distribution of Hellinger Metrics in Makuuchi
I want people to see the general distribution of the Hellinger Metric for the Makuuchi wrestlers:
As noted before, Midorifuji is rather unique.
Nishikifuji is the “most average” in that his winning move distribution is closest to the overall average in the sumo database. I notice Nishikifuji is also kind of in the middle of my height-weight scatterplot. Hmmm.
Kirishima’s Hellinger metric puts him out a little from the crowd… but that’s because I’m comparing to the overall average from the sumo database.
I’m thinking of doing further analysis where I do head-to-head comparisons of rikishi — one can use this metric directly to measure “distance” between wrestlers. That will take a little more time.
In addition, someone in the Sumo subreddit recommended just looking at Makuuchi matches, not just the whole sumo database…. and that would take longer to incorporate into the analysis.
Enjoy!
