Report card: 2024 Kyushu Basho - Part 3 (plus programming note)

Time to put the 2024 Kyushu basho to bed!

Happy New Year everyone and thank you for making 2024 so special for me and Sumo Stomp! Last year was my second full year of covering sumo here and I was blown away by the support and the interaction I was able to have with readers.

I’m looking forward to a great 2025, which will hopefully be marked by the launch of my merch store (Marcus if you’re reading this, get ready to hear from me soon!).

But, for now, we’re still focused on the tail end of 2024 and the Kyushu basho. This is my final report card for 2024 and it focuses on our upper ranked sumotori. That cohort includes the two men who went head-to-head for the Emperor’s Cup. There’s a couple of other standouts here, too.

Let’s get into it!

Programming Note: After recent takedowns by NHK I’m going to need to adjust how I do things at Sumo Stomp! NHK diligently pursues reproductions of their content, which is their right. I use sumo footage as a garnish to my content and I believe that what I do is covered under the term ‘fair use’. However, when a company issues a copyright strike you often don’t get a venue to adequately argue things like fair use. Because of this, I think I need to switch things up a little to protect myself against a sudden removal of my content. My initial plan is to pay-wall my archives and possibly remove videos and gifs of full bouts. Going forwards I will just use videos posted on the official JSA YouTube channel. The only gifs I’ll make will be short ones of wrestler warm-ups, crowd reactions, etc. maybe a replay here and there. I can still do Report Cards under this plan. Spotlight posts might be tough, though. Either way, I’ll be doing a lot more telling and less showing, which isn’t ideal. But I’d hate to wake up one day and see everything I’ve created on this site disappear. Hope you all understand. Best!

I did good. Real good.

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Shodai

Rank: Komusubi 1 West
Record: 4-11
Grade: E-

Shodai, like most of his brethren from the island of Kyushu, suffered in November. He looked anxious and passive on the doyho, a horrible combination, and was pushed back and out quickly in many of his bouts. Shodai has spoken about how pressure has affected him in the past (thus ruining his ozeki reign). And it seemed like the pressure of performing, as komusubi, in Kyushu affected his performance, too.

Shodai often looks disinterested. But, in Kyushu, after getting hit in the tachiai, he sometimes looked like he didn’t want to be there. This might be because he is carrying an injury and trying not to aggravate it. See below how he gave up after Daieisho bounced him back to start their bout.

We had a similar scene against Onosato (below). Here Shodai opened with his hands low, protecting his belt. He did that despite Onosato being more likely to open with thrusts to the chest.

This 4-11 breaks Shodai’s short kachi-koshi streak. He had banked back-to-back 10-5 records prior to this.

Wakamotoharu

Rank: Komusubi 1 East
Record: 10-5
Grade: B-

Wakamotoharu put in a strong performance in Kysuhu and has been rewarded with a promotion back to sekiwake to start the year. He lost to all three ozeki in this tournament. His other losses were very avoidable, though (hence my stingy grade). His other two losses were against Shodai and Hiradoumi (both of whom finished at 4-11).

Wakamotoharu is the hidari-yotsu master. Only elite wrestlers are capable of reliably stuffing his attempts to establish that left arm inside grip. Wakamotoharu uses that position for both defense and offense. I really liked how he deployed the move in this bout with Oho:

Oho is a long-armed thruster. Against someone like Wakamotoharu he wants to use his reach to create space, pushing someone far back so he can hound them out along the boundary and prevent them from touching his belt. Oho tried to do this against Wakamotoharu, opening with a two handed thrust to the chest off the tachiai. That sent Wakamotoharu back. Oho then charged.

Wakamotoharu showed a lot of composure as Oho charged at him. He stood his ground and delivered a short slap to Oho’s cheek. I think he did this to avoid smashing face-first into Oho as he leaned forwards to reach around for Oho’s belt with his right hand.

While he reached with the right hand, he was able to establish the inside position with his left hand (that was easier to do since Oho’s hip was shaded slightly forwards on that side). Wakamotoharu wanted to get the belt in his right hand, too, to establish a very commanding hidari-yotsu. Oho’s size made it difficult for him to reach, though. Because of that Wakamotoharu had to settle for a sashite on the left side only, which is something he’s very comfortable with.

Oho knew he was in danger here. His response was to try and grab Wakamotoharu’s belt himself, with his left hand. That’s a good decision, even if you’re not very comfortable with yotsu-zumo (as Oho is, only 12% of his wins are yorikiri, well below the average rate of 25%). As Oho reached, though, Wakamotoharu twitched his hips to prevent him grabbing on. It’s amazing that he could time those twitches so well despite being totally blind to how close Oho’s fingers are to his belt.

After blocking those attempts, Wakamotoharu was able to step forwards. He then did something surprising. He dropped his hidari-yotsu and used his free hands to thrust. Oho, who had been focusing on defending the belt grab, was then vulnerable to the thrusts against his chest, which put him over the line.

This was a great demonstration of how being master of a technique doesn’t mean you have to fight your bouts the same way each time. It’s these nuances that have prevented Wakamotoharu from being a one-trick pony and helped him become an elite wrestler.

Wakamotoharu also deserves kudos for avoiding this posterizing attempt from Ura.

Daieisho

Rank: Sekiwake 1 West
Record: 8-7
Grade: C+

Daieisho gave us another so-so 8-7 performance in Kyushu. That’s three 8-7 records in a row and four kachi-koshi (having scored 11-4 in May). This is all better than losing, but I want more from a sekiwake. Daieisho’s 2024 looked a little like Kotozakura’s 2023, with him being consistently good albeit under-the-rader. However, Kotozakura had a lot more ceiling back then than Daieisho does today at 31-years-old.

He lost to Kotozakura, Hoshoryu and both Waka Bros. this tournament. But the other losses were to Atamifuji, Churanoumi and Abi — a group you’d like him to be more competitive against.

His best win was this effort over Onosato.

This was Daieisho’s first ever win against Onosato (they’ve fought five times). I think this loss, like many Onosato suffered in Kyushu, might be down to the youngster running out of steam in his first full year of top flight sumo.

Daieisho showed a lot of strength and guts in halting Onosato’s first push out attempt. Onosato then opted to try to grapple with Daieisho. Neither of these guys are great in that department, but Daieisho’s experience edge helped him get under Onosato and drive him out.

Daieisho is a little stuck in his career right now. If he can’t consistently beat up on the maegashira ranks there is little chance he will be able to move past sekiwake. And I don’t think he’s much of a threat to win a yusho given his terrible form against the current ozeki (13-26).

The ozeki he has the best record against is Kotozakura (8-10). However, in Kyushu Kotozakura was a man on the mission. He showed an extra gear in this tournament, something we don’t see from Daieisho often. See below how Kotozakura beat Daieisho at his own high-powered thrusting game.

Kirishima

Rank: Sekiwake 1 East
Record: 6-9
Grade: D

This was sad.

Kirishima seemed reborn at the aki basho, going 12-3 and finishing runner-up. However, in Kyushu he faltered. His 6-9 resulted in him being demoted all the way to maegashira 1. A year ago he was ozeki and coming off a yusho at the 2023 Kyushu basho (his second yusho of the year). Heading into 2024 it felt like Kirishima had stolen a pace on Hoshoryu and Takakeisho for the race to be the next yokozuna.

However, after a good January (11-4) Kirishima slumped to a 5-10 then 1-6-8 and 8-7 that saw him lose, and fail to regain, his ozeki status.

In Kyushu he lost his sekiwake rank in part due to an awful start to the tournament, where he went 0-5. This loss to Abi came during that run:

When he is on his game Kirishima’s awareness is second to none. However, in this Abi bout he gets caught almost completely flat-footed. That resulted in him sailing backwards when Abi connected with a big thrust to his chest. If his feet were more staggered, he would have been able to roll with that strike or possibly evade it completely.

Kirishima seemed to lack awareness, specifically ring awareness, in his loss to Wakamotoharu, too. After doing a good job of stymieing Wakamotoharu’s attempt to get his favourite inside position with the left hand, Kirishima tried to escape alongside the straw (in a move similar to his highlight finish over Atamifuji in September). This time, though, Kirishima stepped out of bounds, a sign that he tried to execute the escape without having a good read on how much space he had behind him.

Hoshoryu added insult to injury this tournament, giving Kirishima his make-koshi on Day 14 via tsuridashi.

As a big Kirishima fan it’s miserable that the lasting images of his 2024 are him being carried like a toddler (as well as being air-mailed by Terunofuji in January). I really hope he can quickly forget this year and show us some of that Kiribayama form in 2025.

Onosato

Rank: Ozeki 2 West
Record: 9-6
Grade: B-

I’ve said a few times already that I think Onosato ran out of steam in Kyushu. He looked tired (and maybe hurt) and because of this a lot of his worst attributes cropped up more often than they did during his stellar showings in previous basho. Those bad tendencies include being sluggish off the tachiai, being indecisive over whether to be thrusting or grappling, and flailing with his arms when put on the back foot.

Given what we’ve seen from Onosato in 2024, I think we can excuse an off-tournament (especially one where he was still able to win nine times). Kyushu marked his first full year in makuuchi and first full year of 15-day tournaments. His first year in Grand Sumo, 2023, saw him compete just 44 times. This year he did the full 90. There had to be some teething pains (and probably real physical pains that he fought through and will now have to get used to).

The most embarrassing incident for Onosato in Kyushu was this loss to Abi, where he gave machine-gun arm his third career sukuinage (beltless arm throw) victory.

Abi was on a tear in Kyushu, but I don’t think he pulls this move off on a one-hundred-percent focused and fit Onosato. Slow the video down to 0.25 speed and it’s easy to see how slow Onosato was at getting his hands up to block Abi’s nodowa (throat thrust). He was also slow to shuck it off his throat, allowing Abi a second pump to push him off balance. When Onosato came forwards, that’s when the wheels fell off in this bout. If you watch Onosato’s feet you’ll see how high he is stepping (a cardinal sin in sumo). With his feet so high (and his head down) he was careening forwards with little control. This gave the experienced Abi a great opportunity to execute a throw he hardly ever uses.

I’ve shown you his Daieisho bout already, but I want to share the replay of the ending below.

You can see Onosato switched his attention from belt to shoulders, to belt again, to shoulders again. At no point in this sequence did he commit to a defense. That time switching back and forth did nothing for him and only allowed Daieisho to continue forcing him backwards. Daieisho had a moro-zashi grip in this bout (double underhooks). An experienced yotsu wrestler, blessed with Onosato’s size, could defend this by trying to armbar both of those arms and work towards a kimedashi finish (Terunofuji likes that move a lot). It would be very hard to get that with your heels on the straw, but attacking Daieisho’s elbow joints would have been a better choice than limply pushing down on his shoulders.

The last Onosato bout I want to show is his match with Takanosho. This one is a mix of what we saw in the Abi and Daieisho bouts. Here Onosato was slow, again, to disrupt the nodowa. And when he was forced back he, again, just flapped at Takanosho’s shoulders instead of committing to something like a belt grab or a side step.

Hoshoryu

Rank: Ozeki 1 West
Record: 13-2 jun-yusho
Grade: A

This was a great tournament for Hoshoryu, despite losing to Kotozakura for the cup on the final day. I think the 2024 Kyushu basho might go down as the tournament where Hoshoryu found the sumo that will bring him the most success in his career.