Happy Retirement, Takakeisho!
A lookback at the Battle Hamster's stats -- Much better than many people think
There were a slew of retirement announcements after the September tournament, but the most notable was he of short stature and massive fighting spirit:
I was never a big Takakeisho fan, as I’m not big on oshi-sumo, but I respected that he put effort into his sumo.
Unlike Shodai. (Yeah, I’m calling him out, specifically. Dude.)
Takakeisho rank and weight history since January 2022
Like many a short king at Makuuchi level, he went all-out, which is probably related to his injuries, but he managed to stay at Ozeki level since September 2019 (not shown on this graph).
As you can see, he maintained his weight fairly steadily over this period.
I didn’t start keeping the weight stats until January 2022, but I seem to recall an earlier period where he had a higher weight that was just way too much for his frame. The problem for Takakeisho compared to some of the other short guys is he has itty-bitty feet and ankles.
At about 5’8” or 5’9”, Takakeisho could handle about 360 to 370 pounds in mass, but more than that was just too much.
Alas, his style of sumo was also beginning to tell on him, which has a lot of impact force on the neck. His recurrent neck injury was his main problem at the end.
He finally slipped from Ozeki rank to Sekiwake…
Top Kimarite for Takakeisho
The following will not be a surprise…. or will it?
Here are what the stats say:
A ha! Hatakikomi was beat out by tsukiotoshi!
I was surprised as well. I thought hatakikomi was number 2, for him.
Tsukiotoshi, or thrust down, is similar to hatakikomi, slap down.
The main difference is the length of time the winner’s hands are on the loser’s body — slap indicates a quick application of force versus thrust which would be a longer duration. For both of them, the application of the force is on the upper body to get the other person down to the ground.
Another thing to look at in the graph are the top ways Takakeisho lost: his top losing kimarite was oshidashi, not yorikiri, though we had this meme:
So no, a shove got him out of the ring, too. In general, he lost in a way similar to how he won.
You might like to know that Takakeisho’s winning percentage was 63% over his career, as befits an Ozeki. He was good at his style of sumo.
The unchanging Takakeisho
I know Takakeisho didn’t achieve his goal of Yokozuna, but he was an Ozeki, which most sumo wrestlers never achieve.
I haven’t done an analysis myself, but looking at this post from Tachiai blog from February 2019, I see that there had been 60 Ozeki promotions at that point. (only counting the “modern” sumo era)
Of those 60 Ozeki the author Iksumo looked at, only 26 made it to Yokozuna at that time, though there was one more Yokozuna to be made from the list that he didn’t know at the time. Also, there have been far more demoted ozeki in recent years than in prior years, and I can think of reasons for that dynamic.
I will have to redo Iksumo’s analysis, because I think there are some interesting dynamics going on, as there have to be at least two ozeki (the banzuke requires it), but there does not need to be any Yokozuna.
But back to the battle hamster. I want to bring back this memory, when he was at the top of his game:
And here is a tribute from Chris Sumo:
Takakeisho has put his heart into sumo, and I hope he will continue in good health in his post-pro career as a coach.
He is only 28, and I hope he has a long career as a sumo elder.
Best wishes, Takakeisho!