Height-Weight Scatterplot for March 2025
Lots of guys losing weight before Osaka -- not surprised about the rebound
I try to get the height-weight scatterplots out before the tourneys, but this time I’ve just been swamped with real-world stuff.
Let’s just jump into the graphs and stats.
Full Makuuchi March 2025 Scatterplot
Our new Yokozuna is sitting there—shorter and lighter than the previous Terunofuji. I hope to have a comparison graph of recent (or perhaps all) Yokozuna, but gathering all the stats will take some time.
As per usual, the run-down on these graphs:
The size of the bubbles is an attempt to distinguish the ranks (approximately): the bigger the bubble, the higher the rank
(The color goes along with bubble size, but the colors are similar, being from the Hokusai3 colorway of MetBrewer).
I have three subsets of the above scatterplot, as 42 dots, many of which overlap, is a lot to look at:
Sanyaku (Yokozuna, Ozeki, Sekiwake, Komusubi)
Upper Maegashira (M01 - M08)
Lower Maegashira (M09 - M18)
It’s easier to look at those different groups.
All of the graphs use the same limits on both horizontal and vertical axes, so you can see where the wrestlers are placed with respect to height and weight.
Sanyaku March 2025
My only comment is how relatively light Hoshoryu is. He has been bulking up for him for some tournaments (and I’ll have more to say about his weight below), but he is on the lighter side for a Yokozuna.
He’s not the tallest, but he’s “tall enough”.
Sanyaku tends to be taller than the lower ranks, and we’ll see more size diversity in the lower-ranking rikishi.
Upper Maegashira March 2025
Once we get into rank-and-file, the shorter and lighter rikishi appear… but so do very large ones. I don’t think people really notice Kinbozan’s size, because it doesn’t seem he uses his size to full advantage.
Lower Maegashira March 2025
The shape of the graph at the lowest rank-and-filers is somewhat interesting — going from the “puny” (for a rikishi) of Midorifuji up to the thunderbutts (as I call them) of Shonannoumi and Nishikigi.
There is a wide range of sizes here in height and weight, with all sorts of styles of sumo here.
Weight change histogram, January to March 2025
I had thought the wrestlers were measured only in Tokyo, but I was apparently wrong, as I noticed many of the rikishi had lost weight on the official site (I noticed some changed height… again, too.) I’m not religiously checking the JSA site, so I’m not sure when the stats changed.
As you can see from the histogram, most of the rikishi lost a few kilogram between January and March 2025. It takes work to maintain weight, and with time off in February, perhaps some of the guys weren’t working out as much as they should have been (or eating their chanko).
Let’s see who actually gained weight:
You can see that Hoshoryu was one of the gainers — even if only 1 kilo.
It was a lot of the “little guys” who were gaining.
The biggest losers, on the other hand:
All these stats come from the JSA’s own site, from their official weigh-ins. There can be some fudging of the stats on the day of weigh-in (and Terunofuji’s official stats never changed while he was obviously doing poorly and losing weight.)
However, the long-run record is difficult to hide.
