Top Kimarite of January 2024 Grand Sumo Tournament, as of Day 8
What a basho!
Woo! Drama!
It’s been brutal in Makuuchi, with multiple wrestlers having to bow out due to injuries or illness (Takayasu going twice!) … Haven’t heard about Hokutofuji yet, but leaving the ring area in a wheelchair didn’t bode well.
There are some fun images, too:
Love the Atamifuji fans.
But enough fun - now to the stats.
Kimarite scoreboard: the categories
To remind, here are the main categories of kimarite:
Kihonwaza - these are the basic techniques, and tend to be the most common. Yorikiri and oshidashi are in there.
Tokushuwaza - “Special techniques” - gee, that’s helpful. But it includes the very common hatakikomi “slap down” and hikiotoshi “pull down”.
Nagete - these are throws, and some of my faves, like sukuinage and uwatenage.
Hinerite - “twist down” techniques, this includes moves like Midorifuji’s favorite: katasukashi
Kakete - these are the leg-trip/-pick techniques.
The catch-all “other” includes the unfortunate “fusen” when the opponent has had to bow out due to illness or injury.
Top Four Kimarite
I pulled out the top 4 overall kimarite so far — oshidashi and yorikiri are always the top two, but we have hatakikomi and tsukiotoshi as the next two.
It is interesting to me how high oshidashi is for the paying ranks compared to the lower divisions.
This is not always true, by the way. This is what I had from a previous tournament, day 8, May 2023:
This is going to be due to the specific mix of wrestlers, of course.
In May 2023, tsukiotoshi was much higher. Many of the same rikishi were competing in Makuuchi who deployed and won via tsukiotoshi. But perhaps dynamics have been affected by some of the newcomers like Atamifuji.
Hmmm.
