Congrats to Takerufuji!
One for the record books!
As all the sumo fans know, Takerufuji, newcomer to Makuuchi, the first time in 110 years! He swept all the special prizes! AMAZING!
Some smiling screencaps right after he realized he won. Then he had to get all stoic and serious, in the usual sumo style.
Where is he in the scatterplot?
Takerufuji is on the light side, weighing in at only 143 kg (about 315 pounds).
He’s 184 cm tall, or about 6 feet tall. So not short, and not all that heavy for a wrestler.
Of course, have him holding the Emperor’s Cup in a picture next to his mom:
…he doesn’t look all that small.
Scanty stats from the newbie
When I checked Takerufuji’s listing at the sumo database, after the Haru Basho he had only 79 matches listed: 69 wins and 10 losses.
That’s not a lot. But then, he got started in pro sumo in September 2022.
What’s amusing is that he’s had so few matches, he has only 9 different winning kimarite in his records. I had to reach to Kotenage in his losing record to fill out my regular graph template.
And half of his losses are to hatakikomi, which I found interesting.
So, the distribution isn’t that interesting right now, but I hope he gets a chance to rest his leg and he develops this record more….
All the Special Prizes!!!!
Of course, Takerufuji won all the special prizes.
The last time someone swept all the prizes was in 2000:
He was the lowest-ranked of the bunch, so that’s pretty impressive.
If you’re wondering what Wikipedia article the above table comes from, it’s this: Sansho (sumo). These special prizes are not necessarily given out each tournament.
I hope to be able to look at more March Tournament stats (as noted above, Takerufuji doesn’t give much for one to work with…. yet.)
I've been busy with work and my other substack. But I saw a few rare kimarite during Makuuchi, so perhaps there will be something to look at while we wait for the May tournament.