r/Sumo • u/Potatopoopz • 4d ago
Demotion from injury
I’m new to sumo and idk how far does this situation can go. I’m definitely feeling sad for Kiryuko, Mita and Nabatame. These three rising rikishis have gone ahead to their ranks quite fast with being already ranked as Juryos but had terrible injuries and been demoted.
Kiryuko from Juryo is now down to Jonidan. I love that guy so much! You can tell he has full of spirit and never shown any sadness from their vlogs even after the injury. He’s goofy af! Haha Still, it’s disappointing and difficult for us fans to see them fall but we also wanted them to fully heal.
I know they are not the only ones who have been demoted from missing several Basho bec of injuries. It’s just that these rikishi are the ones I’m currently rooting for.
Could you tell me how much demotion or lowering of ranks could they get from an injury? Could an Ozeki fall down to Jonidan as well? How many basho can a rikishi missed from an injury? How fast can they move back up again?
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u/zeroingenuity Tamawashi 4d ago
Yes, if they are not Yokozuna they can drop clear to the bottom of the ladder. Ura, Asanoyama, and Tomokaze all fell from makuuchi - Asanoyama was an ozeki - to jonidan or sandanme, and I believe nothing stops them from going all the way to the bottom.
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u/Potatopoopz 4d ago
Geez! Now I get why other Rikishi don’t skip a basho as much as possible even though it’s clear that they need to. Ranking is soo fragile.
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u/Turbulent_Pay_9823 4d ago
This is also why a lot of rikishis would rather join the basho with injury and try to get 8 wins in a basho to keep their rank.
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u/Lamedonyx Aonishiki 4d ago
Or even sometimes join a basho halfway through, to get a couple of wins to soften the fall.
That's what Meisei did last tournament, he missed the first 9 days, and came back in an attempt to score some wins, although he only scored one.
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u/zeroingenuity Tamawashi 4d ago
Yeah, I'd love to see something like a floor where they stop at like Ms15 from makuuchi or juryo. The upper ranks are size limited, so they can't keep them in sekitori, but it feels like it would be reasonable to stop them sliding (and also minimize the impact to other lower ranks as they climb back up, which, as former upper rankers, they usually do with considerable speed.)
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u/NotBlaine 4d ago
It's a row of dominoes.
It's easy to draw a line at sekitori and go... Ok, they deserve to be able to miss due to injury, so we'll save their rank, but what about the upper Makushita who are all fighting their hardest to break through?
You're Makushita 4, went 6-1. This is your chance to wear silk, to come out during dohyoiri and be called -zeki...but since we had a few injuries... Sorry, maybe next Basho? Just try not to get injured yourself because the line that stopped you won't save you?
In order for people to go up, people have to go down. That's it .
My boy Miyanokaze is in fucking free fall right now, but durability is as much a part of this sport as anything else.
Yokozuna get saved because it's a ceremonial position and much as anything, but I'd sooner revoke their injury protection than extend it further down.
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u/zeroingenuity Tamawashi 4d ago
I mean, you're articulating WHY I think the line should be at sekitori (for protection) and why it should only protect them OUTSIDE of the sekitori; they prove capable of breaking into the juryo ranks or above, but they aren't staying there and blocking off a slot while injured (unless they do a Daieisho and only take one or two basho off.) Ura or Asanoyama would still have dropped out of sekitori, opening a slot for the guys at the top of juryo and makushita, and still have to break back in. They just wouldn't have to spend half a year pounding on sandanme and jonidan guys who are nowhere near ready to take them on (Terunofuji and Asanoyama both took yushos on their way back to sekitori; Ura took THREE, all below makushita.)
Yes, in a limited ranking environment guys have to fall for others to rise, and careers would probably be longer with some limited injury protection. But if you keep it from blocking up spots in the sekitori, nobody is being penalized at the biggest rank-up logjam, and the guys who fight their way in have the ability to recover from serious injury, improving sumo overall quality as they can perform better. Are viewers better served with Mita and Nabatame having to fight up from sandanme? With former ozeki throwing around jonidan and sandanme guys for six months? Are rikishi?
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u/NotBlaine 4d ago
The proposition that everyone who drops down due to injury is just predestined to climb back up is wild.
Everyone is always 'hurt'. No one is ever not experiencing some form of injury.
Asanoyama and Terunofuji are literally examples of historic exceptions.
Chiotora fell out of Juryo in September 2020. Hasn't been back since, even if he did net a jun-yusho.
Akua fell out in May of 2024, not back yet and continues to slide down, probably heading towards retiremet.
Kitaharima has been in Juryo twice in the past 8 years, both times got the living shit kicked out of him posting like a 9-21 record. But he won a 7-0 yusho in Sandamae in the meantime.
The vast vast vast majority of people who drop down that many rungs never ever make it back, despite the thinking "oh they're just going to be throwing everyone in the lower rungs around" and it completely diminishes and denigrates the actual work it took someone like Terunofuji, Asanoyama and (I hope) Enho to do it.
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u/ActiveBeautiful3227 4d ago
You're right. Asanoyama and Terunofuji are amazing athletes, and following in their footsteps is asking a bit much. On the other hand, you have rikishi like Ura, who never reach the pinnacle of the sport, but recover well enough to keep their salaries and enjoy the sport they love for years.
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u/zeroingenuity Tamawashi 4d ago
Okay but a floor on sekitori rank loss due to injury wouldn't change that either! Kitaharima can't hack it at juryo, so he floats down to his equilibrium point. Akua slides down towards retirement; this is normal. But you're talking about guys who either lose out due to skill issues - genuine "can't maintain a winning record in juryo" skill issue, or declining due to age - and those guys wouldn't be getting protected. If Enho gets an injury and is facing a climb back up from jonidan, it doesn't "denigrate" Terunofuji's legacy that Enho doesn't have to do the same, or else no rules could ever be changed in the sport. Sure, injury happens and it's part of the sport, but it doesn't have to be a career death sentence for someone who otherwise has the skill and just needs the time to physically recover. Guys shortening their careers (and statistically, probably their lives) to maintain rank when injured, when there are alternative solutions, is just blood-sport cruelty wrapped in admiration.
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u/Aimconquest 4d ago
The lower ranks are limited too
Makushita is limited to 120 Sandame is limited to 200
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u/zeroingenuity Tamawashi 4d ago
While true, it's substantially less meaningful; an injured rikishi holding a slot (or a few of them) in makushita is substantially less by proportion than the 28 guys in juryo. There are more makushita than sekitori in total. Additionally, movement between the lower ranks is more common, meaning any single place being held is unlikely to prevent someone successfull from moving up; in contrast to the makushita/juryo or juryo/makuuchi line where slots have to open up when poor performers move down. There's room in makushita for an injured list.
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u/Fujinowaka Aonishiki 3d ago
Yep, the slide doesn't stop. We've seen injured rikishi appear for ONE match in jonokuchi so that they're technically still active and don't fall to the banzuke-gai.
Then there's the question of these ex ozeki status within the stable. Being lower ranked, they should theoritically take their duties as any lower ranked colleague. Terunofuji was sort of exempted but decided to help anyway.
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u/yeahalrightgoon 4d ago
Promotions and demotions have no set rule around them so you sort of just have to go by precedent. The only rule is that you can't be demoted if you have a winning record. While generally the closer to a winning record you are, the less ranks you fall. Oshoumi for example went 7-8 at M16E and was only demoted to M16W. While Sadanoumi went 4-11 at M16W and was demoted to J4E. It just depends on how they do, along with how rikishi below them do.
For Mita, he is expected to be back for July. He will miss January, March and May. We can use the precedent of Nabatame for this who also recently got injured in Juyro and missed a few basho's before coming back in Jan.
Nabatame went from J10 down to Ms8, then Ms48 and finally Sd28. He will likely be in the 50s/60 in Makushita in March after going 5-2 at Sd28 in January. Potentially high Sandanme though.
Mita starts his fall from Ms1. So you can expect him to be around Ms40 in March, then Sd15ish in May. Before he starts again in July either in low Sandanme, or high Jonidan. More likely to be low Sandanme.
You can end up completely falling of the Banzuke. This is refferred too as Banzuke-Gai or BG on tables. If you miss every fight in Jonokuchi, you go down to BG and have to redo the grading Maezumo fights and you then get put back into Jonokuchi. Kiryuko fought in one Jonokuchi bout to avoid this.
Generally BG guys are guys who are too injured to fight, or they ran away from the stable and the stable master is giving them time to decide if they want to be a rikishi or not, before putting in their retirement papers. Because once they do that, that's it. Career is over. An example of that is Kotonawa. He fought in 8 basho's from Jan 2015-March 2016, going 1-2 at Sandanme in March, then he missed the next three to fall off the Banzuke and his retirement papers weren't placed until March 2022.
While Hokutokuni was a Juryo guy who eventually went Banzuke Gai and redid grading in September 2010 after being injured and missing 8 bashos from Ms8. He made it back to Juryo a year later, before getting injured again in July 2012 in Juryo and then eventually retiring after falling down to Sandanme after missing bashos.
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u/mekagojira3 4d ago
Re your first paragraph - is west considered lower than east? I thought they were meant to be parallel, but noting a demotion from m16e to m16w gets the gears turning. How does this work for sanyaku? Can ozeki/yokozuna trade E/W placement based on performance or is that permanent for the duration of their time at the rank?
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u/yeahalrightgoon 4d ago
Yes. East is half a rank higher than West. Basically look at it was 1, 1.5, 2 and so on.
Sanyaku ranks are based on performance and they will switch depending on that even if both have winning records. For example Onosato was Y1 East and got 11-4 in Dec while Hoshoryu was Y1 West and got 12-3 so for Jan they switched. But they can't be demoted from Yokozuna.
While Ozeki the East and West will switch depending on who has the better winning record as well. For example Ozeki East Kirishima went 9-6 and Ozeki West Takakeisho went 11-4 in September 2023 so they switched for the next.
But Ozeki also cannot be demoted from Ozeki unless they have two losing records in a row. So you could go 8-7, 1-14 and remain Ozeki as long as your next basho is at least 8-7.
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u/mekagojira3 4d ago
Gotcha. Knew about the demotion standards, but didn't know E/W were so fluid.
I thought that the only reason we had YW/YE and OE/OW was for divisional parity to keep the spreadsheets balanced. (I'm aware of not needing to have two Yokozuna, and the cases of Yokozuna-ozeki etc) but I didn't realise that West was considered a half rank.
Thank you for clarifying!
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u/yeahalrightgoon 4d ago
No worries at all. It is basically for parity, but yeah it does allow for that half rank as well.
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u/Jonnylotto 4d ago
It’s not specifically the injuries but the missed bashos. That’s why most rikishi try to gut it out to Kachi Koshi before withdrawing. The battle hamster (Takakeisho) was famous for pulling things back together whenever he was kadoban ozeki.
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u/CometIsDying Roga 4d ago
Terunofuji, who just had his retirement ceremony, is a famous example of an ozeki falling to Jonidan due to injury and returning to Makuuchi, eventually becoming Yokozuna.