Tobizaru Profile: Weight, Ranks, and Kimarite
No, I don't think Tobi will win the November 2023 tournament
Meme from Subreddit user ashiballashi:
What that says, starting at the top and going clockwise: [I can read Japanese a little, also some help from the SumoMemes crew]:
Power
Speed
Mental/heart
Smiling face [this is the one off the chart]
Technique
We’ll see how he ends up (and this one is called a radar chart). As I’m developing my Sumo Stats concept, let’s just take the stats I have amassed for Tobizaru, as well as some from the Sumo Database, which I use for the record of ranks and win/loss records and kimarite, or winning moves.
Nice smile, Tobi.
Tobizaru and Ura are my two favorite wrestlers, and not because they have a particular joie-de-vivre surrounding sumo that they exude, win or lose.
Also, they’re both very tricky.
I think Tobi is very fast and has a lot of technique, but let’s check the stats.
Rank and Weight January 2022 - Nov 2023
First a comment on Tobizaru’s weight — a grand fluctuation of at most 5 kilograms, or, in American, 11 pounds.
Frankly, to most Americans looking at sumo wrestlers… hell, as a middle-aged lady contemplating leftover Halloween candy, an 11-pound corridor in weight over a 2-year period seems fairly reasonable.
As for the rank, obviously, a site on sumo statistics is intended for those already interested in sumo, so I’m not going to explain the sumo ranks. I will let Sumo Stew do that.
But more to the point, I don’t have good statistics right now to measure stability at certain ranks, etc., and I’ve been trying to think of ways to measure difficulty of opponents because I know that people have been thinking of that now that Hakuho is retired.
Speaking of which…
Winning (and Losing) Ways
This is a work in progress.
I took the top 10 kimarite for Tobizaru, as per the Sumo Database. That’s the dark blue bar on the left — and that’s the percentage of his wins.
He has the same number of wins for both hatakikomi and oshidashi. I put hatakikomi first primarily because the database did (probably due to ABC order), however there is something you need to know: oshidashi and yorikiri are the top winning moves overall in sumo.
The middle bar is the percentage of winning moves for all wrestlers.
By the way, “hatakikomi” is “slap down” for those not in the know, and there are many ways that slap down can happen… and one common way for this to happen is… the EVIL HENKA.
Tobizaru Technique
But that’s not the only way.
Let Don Don break down Tobizaru’s technique.
Hikiotoshi is another signature winning move for Tobizaru — that’s hand pulldown. Very common for Tobi, very unusual overall.
The only other one I want to point out, though not a high percentage move for Tobi, is just very rare for others: kekaeshi. This is a type of foot sweep. Given that Tobi is one of the shorter wrestlers, a foot sweep makes sense.
And a reminder of where Tobi is on the height/weight scatterplot:
SUPPOSEDLY he is shorter than Midorifuji in the official measurements, but nobody believes that.
Midori is really the shortest of the Makuuchi wrestlers, and why somebody thought to “boost” his height 3cm, I dunno.
But Tobi really is short compared to most of the Makuuchi division, so he does tend to be very tricky. Whenever you see a guy who is short and light compared to most of the top division wrestlers, and is as top-ranked as Tobizaru… that’s not an accident.
Especially given he has maintained a relatively high rank in the face of much taller and heavier wrestlers. No, he has not been able to stay in sanyaku, but that’s tough.
I love my flying ape, and I hope he does well in the November tournament.
