Who Had the Most Different Kimarite in Haru 2024?
Is this going to stay boring? Come on, Makuuchi....
For right now, I will focus solely on Makuuchi.
I’m not putting my thumb on the scales this time, unlike prior attempts to force the results to favor my guy, Ura.
This post is straightforward: who had the most different kimarite in Haru 2024?
Obviously, the more wins a rikishi has, the more chances to have more different kimarite. I will return to this concept at the end of the post, because there will be a very obvious name missing from the top wrestlers from the March tournament.
Ranking table for unique kimarite in March 2024
Here are the top 11 wrestlers for March 2024 — stopping at 11 instead of 10 as there 7 people who had 6 unique kimarite they had won with.
One ozeki observation: you see three of the four ozeki in this table, but what about the fourth, Kirishima?
Kirishima had only 5 wins in total, so could only have 5 unique kimarite at most. He did have 5 unique kimarite, as it so happens. One of the 5 was a fusen (the other person was absent, so he won by default), so that’s not much of a win.
Top dog in kimarite diversity: Hoshoryu
I will note that Hoshoryu was also one of the top three (tied with Kotonowaka and Kirishima) back in January 2024.
Let’s look at the 9 kimarite of Hoshoryu for March 2024:
He has a decent distribution over four different categories and only two repeats. He has got quite a lot of versatility.
Number two with a bye: Hiradoumi
Hiradoumi gets in second place, but due to a heartbreak to me:
That kinjite — the hansoku — that’s the hairpull that disqualified Ura’s sweet would-have-been-a-win.
Here’s Sumo Jason’s coverage:
So, it’s one of the non-technique wins, just as the fusen (no-show) win for Kirishima. It doesn’t really count. It’s not a technique. I should remove these (not doing that… yet.)
Numbers Three: Takayasu and Kotonowaka
Let’s look at these together.
Neither got a win by a non-technique — so they are looking solid for their third places for both. The main difference is that Kotonowaka had only 10 wins compared to Takayasu’s 11. To get the same number of unique techniques, Kotonowaka needed to have one fewer repeat.
Wait… Where’s the Tournament Winner?
Indeed.
Takerufuji had 5 unique kimarite.
As I wrote in the post on the winner, Takerufuji doesn’t give me much to work with. For his complete pro sumo career thus far, which reaches back to September 2022, he has only 9 total different kimarite. And he used 5 of those 9 in March.
Maybe he needs to expand his repertoire a bit.
This is very cool! Thanks for putting all this together (and sharing, of course). I think the hair pull was a pretty harsh decision.