I always think it’s funny when someone does a move that hasn’t been seen in 7 years, like the ringside announcers must be sweating bullets trying to remember the right name for it.
Also, the term for the winning technique is kimarite, you will probably hear commentators using that word a lot. There’s 82 official kimarite according to wikipedia. I think the website sumodb has a searchable index of them somewhere.
Ura (pink) performing tasukizori against Amakaze (blue) in Jan 2017; the first in the Juryo division and first in 65 years in professional sumo
Literally no one has seen this move in sixty years and the ref has to be able to call it on the spot. Pretty amazing.
Well I wrote it the Japanese way, with an “i” at the end. But usually in English it’s written “skosh,” in which case it’s not so obvious.
Trolly covered it pretty well. There’s actually a kimarite judge sitting off to the side next to the announcer, who’s job it is to pronounce the official winning technique. And yeah, he can call up to the video room for slow-mo confirmation when it’s not clear. So year, the buzz around kimarite (who, what, how often) is a pretty big deal in sumo circles.
For example, just this basho Tamawashi, who almost exclusively a pusher, had four yorikiri wins in a row, so unheard of it caused a big buzz.
Yeah, that’s tough to figure out.
Seems weird to get worked up about any number of yorikiri. They are just so common.
In general yes, it’s the most common sumo kimarite of them all. But for Tamawashi, four times in a row is a statistical anomaly.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but this is correct. Hokuseiho is clearly too big to do sumo.
Hokuseiho is still basically a child with undeveloped sumo and is winning in Makuuchi. He’s learning under the GOAT. He’ll only get better, stronger, and higher ranked.
Too inexperienced? Yes. Too big? No.
Hakuoho is the new Hakuho.
Ryuden is low key having a great run.
BTW, what is up with the pronunciation of his name. I don’t know what sound they are starting his name with, but it sure doesn’t sound like an ‘R’.
The Japanese R sound is different from what it is in English. My pronunciation is terrible so I can’t really explain it any better.
The ‘R’ in rikishi sounds fine, tho.
When the RI is combined with YU, as in Ryuden’s name, the closest approximation for the true sound in English would be Ri-Yuu-Den.
Thanks.
Actually, while you’re here, I was wondering if you could help me get to the bottom of a mystery. The announcer on the broadcast I watched today was Raja Pradhan. So I thought, this guy must have an interesting story. Indian name, largely American accent, speaks perfect Japanese.
So, I looked him up and he is a completely Japanese-looking dude who was born and raised in Japan. I guess he might be half-Indian, but he doesn’t really obviously look it. I don’t suppose you know anything more about him. Above is all I turned up on Google.
I think Raja is actually a Japanese born and raised Nepali (or Indian), but I’m not 100% sure.
I guess I could buy half Nepali. I could see that. His English is good enough he could have fooled me that he’s a native speaker. Plenty of non-native speakers never make a mistake and don’t have an accent of a non-native speaker. Not only does he have that, but he just sounds extremely comfortable speaking it.
Could very well have gone to an English-speaking international school growing up.
Told you.
Is that very common for native Japanese to do? I thought it was mostly expats who did that.
