Yokozuna Outliers! (The Close Misses, The Borderlines and The Overkills - The Dohyo: E156)

hello you wanted to know about those outlier Yokozuna runs well we're back and we got details s throw H the get in the ring welcome to the hello and welcome back to the doo here on Mr jwag Channel this is a very special episode this is sort of a A continuing appendix to a previous episode episode 122 uh what is a Yokozuna run really right there uh and that turned out to be much more of a stat-based episode I looked through a whole bunch of Yokozuna runs and figured out what makes a Yokozuna run in the modern era but in doing so I found out that I was really writing two episodes the episode you saw about the stats and this episode which is about the stories obviously when you have a standard of motion you were going to have people that barely clear the bar people who don't clear the bar and people who way overshoot the bar so we are going to be talking about their stories today but first a few ground rules number one we are only going to be looking at stats from 1958 onward that is considered the start of modern Sumo and the six boso a year system and those of you who are big fans of the Yokozuna run episode know I ran a second parallel data set from 1987 on because two things happened in 1987 that affected Sumo number one in May of that year the the first non-japanese oi kishki was promoted and at the end of that year we had the futah haaro Scandal where Yokozuna futah Hugo was forced to retire without ever having won a you show so as we noted in episode 122 there is a definite difference between the standard before 1987 and after 97 uh as we're covering about 7075 years of sumo history there are going to be some wrestlers with very similar names and some wrestlers with identical names I'm going to do my best to keep all of those separated and as is the case when you've been doing a YouTube Sumo show for about 4 and 1/2 years uh I have covered a lot of these stories in previous episode so whenever that happens I'll just throw you to that link uh and you'll be getting sort of the tldr of that wrestler story so to recap the standards for making Yokozuna post 1987 are you must be in ozeki in good standing no kaban with at least three boso at the rank you must have won at least one yho in the sanyaku doesn't have to be oaki you must win two consecutive Y show or Y show equivalent and we figured out that the very minimum bar for that seems to be 12 win junuo or better the wrestler must win 25 or more matches over those consecutive Yow or equivalent meeting these criteria does not guarantee a promotion and other factors may be taken into consideration including a candidate's previous ring excellence and or the current number of healthy [Applause] Yokozuna so here we are at our very first category borderline promotions these are wrestlers who were promoted by the previous standard the pre-1987 standard but still made it all the way up and got the rope and just to get this out of the way 72nd Yokozuna kisenosato was not a borderline promotion he totally qualified for the Rope it just took him forever to get that first US show but by the time he got that first US he had 12 June yho let us not forget before he got the Rope kissan oato got four June Y show in a year Twice first of many already did an episode about that and then moving on to sort of the the elephant Yokozuna in the room 60th Yokozuna futah haaro uh well to be fair he did beat the pre futah haaro standard in May of 1986 he got a 12-3 June us show followed that up in July with a 14 And1 play play off loss so that got him to 26 wins over two at ozeki and in his 14-1 playoff loss he ended up beating chuji on day 15 before losing to him in the playoff his only loss that tournament was to Future Yokozuna hoko Umi now any of you who know Sumo history know that futago of course is the only Yokozuna to never win a y show so obviously he didn't quite pass that level of the standard but I will point out he seems to have been instrumental in helping create that standard now if we go all the way back to 194 42 Ted Kuni was promoted to Yokozuna with no Y show but he ended up winning one his first Y show in 19508 years after promotion so there is premodern Sumo precedent for the idea of promoting someone who we think is Yokozuna worthy and yeah they'll win a you show later it didn't happen of course there was a giant Behavior scandal with futah haaro and that he was beating some of his suabo alleged to have struck his stable Master's wife although never quite proven and of course he was then sort of kicked out ofuma with no real say in the matter so the question on my mind was if we had Yokozuna at the time why was he the one who was promoted when he hadn't won a y show so the first question I got to ask is were there any other ozeki yes there were five oi at the time in futah haaro then called K was only one of them now three of those ozeki had in fact won yho but they were past their Prime asashio not the asashio we are about to talk about this was asashio 4 hok tenu and wakashimazu and the fifth ozeki onok Kuni who is in fact the onok Kuni we are about to talk to in a second was there but he had not quite hit his Peak yet now there is an argument to be made that chuji was looking a little bit old as the soul Yokozuna and that's so true he was 31 at the time and after that Championship where he beat kital he only stuck around for four more years winning 14 more championships totally one foot in the grave but of course the sumo's powers that be could not have known that so they promoted futah haaro and since this is is in fact one of those things I think sort of change the standard uh I will give this a Borderland promotion that he did meet the standard because fut to hug wrot changed the standard if that makes sense now if we look back to episode 122 we talked about the concept of the dip now back before 1987 we had a few Yokozuna who were promoted with one great tournament one me tournament and then another great tournament and the powers that be decided now we'll give you that dip it'll be like hey you had a great tournament you better do well this tournament didn't all right well you better get X number of wins in the next tournament and then they would and would get promoted the next few Borderland promotions explore the dip next up 46th Yokozuna asashio who was the third to take the name as opposed to the fourth who we just talk about this number three now his Yoko Zar run took place from November of 1958 to March of 1959 at age 29 he ended up getting a 14-1 y show his fourth followed by an 11 and4 June Y show and Then followed that with a 13 and2 Jun show and as a part of that 13-2 Jun show he beat both Yokozuna now those two Yokozuna toi Nishi and wakan Ohana this was wakan Ohana one now toi Nishi is fascinating because at this specific time he was 34 so the JSA may have thought it may be time to find ourselves a new Yokozuna but at the time toin Nishi was doing arguably his best sumo ever he was in the middle of a seven boso stretch of getting yho or Jun yho the other Yokozuna wakan Ohan one he was also performing well but at 31 now asashio was 29 so we're not looking at like hey here's a youngster who's going to get a lot more years but he was a few more perhaps they were expecting toi Nishi to be retiring soon and because there was such a strong rivalry at the time with toi Nishi and wakan Ohana they may have just wanted another Yokozuna up to maintain the idea of that Yokozuna rivalry so asash did get promoted toin Nishi did retire fairly soon after that asashio won four of his yho before he became Yokozuna only won one of them after four of those yho were in Osaka and the other one was in Fukuoka so he was a five-time winner and never once won a y show in Tokyo this brings us to the story of 47th Yokozuna Kashi wad now kashi's Yokozuna run is so unique I almost uh couldn't include it in the post 1958 rankings because it's just weird it it appears as though Kashi wad has a five boso Yokozuna run follow me on all right so we are looking at January through September of 1961 so he's already at ozeki he wins his first uow in January with a 13-2 he then gets a June show 12 and 3 after that then 10 and 5 11- 4 before finally getting a 12-3 playoff June show for his fifth June us show now remembered when we were discussing the Yokozuna standard and we said other factors May commit to it including the current health of the Yokozuna well it appears that this was one of the big reasons there were two Yokozuna at the time in fact they were the ones we were just talking about wakan Ohana and the new Yokozuna asashio so we're two years later wakan Ohana is now 33 and he had gone Cujo in three of his previous six boso before this tournament and in fact would only complete one 15-day boso after this tournament asashio who we just talked about uh was in even worse shape he had gone Cujo in two of his last three tournaments and never finished a tournament after this one so at this point the JSA was like we need more Yokozuna so manag to promote Kashi Wad and his bestie SL Ral tyo perhaps you've heard of him both at the same time so once again the JSA putting a lot of stock in the idea of rival Yokozuna and that carries over to our next story Tomo Umi the 51st Yokozuna longtime fans know we did a very very deep dive on Tomo Umi in his whole career one of our better like classic episode so if you haven't checked that one out it's great but this also explores the dip and it also explores the idea we have an old Yokozuna who may need to be replaced rather soon and in this case the Yokozuna was Taio who we just talked about so Tomo umi's Yokozuna run was September 1969 through January of 1970 he started off with a 13-2 for his second Y show then got a 10 and5 then came back with a 13-2 playoff loss to friend rival and bestie k no Fuji and then the two of them just like Kashi Wad and Taio were promoted together as rival Yoko Zuna and continuing and nothing bad ever happened after that just just just watch the end our final borderline promotion and possible winner for best timing in Sumo history goes to 62nd Yoko Zuna onok Kuni that's not thrown shade on onok Kuni he absolutely deserved his promotion but they did give him a little bit of a dip so this was May to September of 1987 onok Kuni is 25 and he ends up getting his first Y show and it's a Zeno he follows that up with a 12 and3 Junu show uh some would consider that already meeting the standard but next tournament he ended up getting a 13 and2 Junu show which ended up getting him the promotion now the reason I say the timing for onok Kuni was so excellent was because this happened during konishi ozeki run and it happened right before the fuah haaro Scandal it just feels like the door got a little bit smaller right after he walked through that door so good on you onok Kuni [Applause] so this brings us to the near misses you may notice that a lot of the borderline promotions were pre the 1987 scandals and all of the ones that are the borderline misses are after the 1987 scandals and so we have to start with konishi I guess the proverbial elephant in the room kishki was the very first foreign born ozeki and uh there didn't seem to be a problem with that after all we had had takamiyama the first American to win a US show the very first for in Born person to win Au us show in Japan in 1987 konishi made a very normal ozeki run he got 33 wins over three boso he end up getting a junuo and two special prizes yeah totally normal ozeki run but after that they started to get a little bit worried and we've talked about this at length on this channel before if you have a national sport that is totally tied up with your national identity what does it mean when people who are not from your nation are better than you at your national sport this was a big issue at the time a lot of people were wondering if someone who was not Japanese born could have the spirit to even be a Yokozuna they can we we now know they can now under the old rules konishi could have gotten a Yokozuna promotion via the dip if we look at November of ' 89 through March of 1990 you'll see uh he has an excellent case to be made a 14-1 ow followed by a 10 and5 and then back up with a 13-2 playoff loss and in that 13-2 playoff loss he beat Yokozuna's Hoka Umi and Chio no Fuji quick [Music] sidebar okay so konishi did beat Hoka to Umi in this tournament but he also lost twice to him in that tournament because it was a three-way playoff now for those of you who don't remember how three-way Playoffs work uh everyone draws Lots one wrestler sits two wrestlers Face Off winner stays whoever wins two in a row first is your Champion so the way the March 1990 tournament ended was a three-way playoff between kishki hok Umi and and then ozeki kishima not our current kishima but his oyakata so konishi lost to hokou Umi on day 14 of the regular season and then in the three-way playoff kishki ended up beating hok Umi to open the playoff kishki then lost to ozeki kishima Oi kishima then lost to hoki who then stayed in the ring and beat K iski to win the [Applause] [Music] [Applause] championship no larger point on this one I just love a good three-way playoff quick [Music] sidebar so we fast forward to May of 1991 through March of 1992 this section of sumo is really the only other plausible Yoko zoo in a run for k isi so let's look now in May of 1991 koneski got a 14-1 playoff loss June show this was his 8th June show and he lost twice to Yokozuna Asahi Fuji on day 15 this was followed by a 12-3 his ninth Junu show where he went 2 and0 versus the Yokozuna hok Umi and Asahi Fuji now as we mentioned on the previous Yokozuna episode this is the only instance of an ozeki getting 26 wins over two tournaments and not being eventually promoted to Yoko Zuna the only time and as we can see by the standard he has passed all of the standards at this point this is the only case where I can see where the standard was clearly met but was not followed through with a promotion at least eventually for that wrestler and then if we move ahead to November through March you will see two 13-2 Yow flanked by a 12 and3 so once again the standard is met we have 25 wins there which as we've shown can be considered the Yokozuna standard flanked by two separate yho but still was not given the Rope so at this point the JSA and the YDC seem to have laid down a very hard line to cross you must win two you show in a row equivalent seems to have gone by the wayside for a bit and after that konishi never really had the health to make another Yokozuna run and as a Sumo historians know at the beginning of 1993 AK Bono became the first foreign born Yokozuna after winning two consecutive Y show next up on near misses H we knew we were going to get to him oi Kyo and yes you happen to be in luck with we have explored this one in detail in a previous episode we go through all of Kyle's championships and why they didn't necessarily turn into a Yokozuna run but here is the tldr now there are two points in kyo's career we had a really really strong case for that Yokozuna rope the first one from March to July of 2001 it would have required a dip now Kyle would have needed a big dip for this so in March he ended up getting a 13-2 y show and then in may he got four wins he went Cujo ended up going k on and then came back third you show 13 and two so uh we would have needed a very strong dip so I understand why he wasn't necessarily promoted for that but fast forward to the end of 2004 and in the September and November BOS show he got very very close now after winning his Fifth and what we now know was his final Y show with a 13- two in September of that year they said all right if you get 13 wins in your next one even if you don't win you're going to be a Yokozuna and he got 12 and as we did mention in that episode one of his losses was to a mishira named hakuho so going all the way back to the idea of the shadow of hakuho yes hakuho could have stopped Kyo from being a Yokozuna but yeah a 13-2 followed up with a 12 and3 a number of rushi have been promoted with that before but Kyo didn't quite get it now the next two wrestlers I'm going to sort of put together because it's a similar story ozeki Chio taai and ozeki badut and coincidentally I have done episodes on both of these guys in the shadow of hako series if you wanted to check those out now both of these wrestlers Chio taai In 2002 and baduo in like 2011 2012 they had the exact same records that got them to a y show and 25 wins over two tournaments at ozeki which is the standard but it's the way they got those wins both of them got an 11-4 followed by a 14-1 y show now as we know from well this episode we have two cases where a Yokozuna had an 11 and4 in their y Yokozuna run asash and Kashi just fli back for that we've never had an 11 and4 to a 14-1 because we have essentially gotten rid of the dip now if we look at the boso surrounding badut Uso we'll see he really had no chance for a dip but if we look back to Chio taai we have a stronger case now if you look at Chio ta's boso before the possible Yokozuna run he had a 13 and2 playoff loss and then he went kaban for the next round before coming back within 11 and4 and a four 14 And1 so the there's a possibility they could have squinted and looked at that four boso range in there but that Mak Koshi probably would have taken it right out so no dip for you Chio taai sorry and our last near miss and we have done many episodes about this wrestler oi taka qu show now the battle hamster has gotten very close to promotion twice in his career of course the most recent one was a little over a year ago it was November of 22 and January of 2023 in which he got a 12 and3 junor show followed by a 12-3 you show which adds up to 24 wins and no we have not seen post 1987 any Yokozuna promoted with only 24 combined wins on their run but if we look back just a few years to the fall of 2020 I think we'll see a stronger case now in September he got a 12 and3 June you show but he followed that up with a 13 and2 us show getting him to the 25 win standard so what happened now one might look at that bons and say well there were already two Yokozuna on the banse why would we need another one well in both of those tournaments takao got the junho and the yo for none of the Yokozuna performed they were Cujo for both of them both of them and that might lead you to say well if he couldn't defeat the Yokozuna clearly he wasn't ready to be a Yoku Zuna then they should have been in the ring yeah a more persuasive case I think against takao in this case was that he was getting hurt a lot and he wasn't necessarily upholding the ozeki standard two tournaments before this ozeki run he ended up getting a seven and eight making him kaban the next tournament he did get to eight wins but then went Cujo that patented taka show ash8 and out so they may have just wanted to see just one more Tournament of Excellence before giving him a belt which would allow him to take off tournaments at a time and remember we're talking about post kisenosato uh so like we were allowing Yokozuna to take a lot of Cujo at this time and as if to prove them right takao in the very next tournament went Cujo [Applause] this brings us to our last group Overkill these are two wrestlers who had to prove themselves a few times to get themselves the rope and it may not surprise you that these two Yokozuna were the ones promoted directly before and directly after akono so we start with the 63rd Yokozuna Asahi Fuji of course former Yokozuna Asahi Fuji is best known in his current role as the oakat of the isama stable home to our current Yokozuna Ted no Fuji I feel pretty confident that if Asahi Fuji had had the career he had in the 80s in the 60s he would have been a Yokozuna years before he was eventually promoted so yes well 62nd Yokozuna onok Kuni may have had the best possible timing 63rd Asahi Fuji may have had the worst possible timing the futah Hao Scandal broke right after his promotion to oaki So Not only was he dealing with all of the kishki pressure AK Bono pressure but also right there in the meat of the fuah haaro Scandal so he won his first you show in January of 1988 right after turning ozeki he then took six of the next eight June Y show averaging over 12 wins a tournament and in those six Jun Y show he had two playoff losses to Yokozuna Hoka Umi and in both cases Asahi Fuji won their match in the regular BOS show before losing in the playoff so yes just looking at that stretch there were at least four different places I could see him passing the 25 win threshold having already gotten a US show so there's clearly something going on there where he's not getting promoted then after this stretch he hit a bit of a rough period had like five BOS where he only got eight or nine wins before returning strong how strong well in May and July of 1990 he ended up getting consecutive 14 and one Y show to get the belt he did not have a very long wrestling career after promotion winning only one more Y show and fun fact every single one of his Y show was a 14- one and aside Fuji had four Jun show where he got 13 or more wins last and probably the most famous case of Overkill in all of sumo history takan Ohana but we're talking about Tak Ohana 2 so Tak Ohana 2 was of course the first Yokozuna to make a run after akono who as I said before made it on his very first try at Yokozuna so at this point in Sumo history things seem to be pretty set after the 1987 scandals you need two Y show in a row no Exceptions there would be exceptions later on but right now no this is the timing of where we are in Sumo so what happened to Tak Ohana well he just couldn't seem to get that second one in a row so we're in 1993 after the January boss show akono is promoted so once again talking about the old standard Tak noan managed to clear this one pretty quickly in May and July of 1993 he got a 14-1 for his third us show and then he got a 13-2 playoff loss where he did beat aono on day 15 before immediately losing a playoff to him and just to set the sage for takan Ohana at this point it's not like he had barely cleared this just once at this point he was only 20 and had three Y show and three June us show that's younger than aami Fuji is right now he was so young he couldn't even toast the traditional sake at his first you show young so there may have just been an idea of he's young he's healthy he'll get there eventually it took him a little while so if you look at that first Yokozuna run in 1993 ending in July he follows that up with a 12 and3 June us- show he ended up winning his fourth us- show after going kaban so of course he would need something strong after that and after his fourth you- show 11 and4 but then he followed that up with a 14 And1 you- show so right after that no 11 and four okay then after that six you show Zeno they got to give it to him here right well it was actually pretty close the JSA nominated for him at that point after winning his sixth championship and it was aseno they nominated him but the Yokozuna deliberation Council said nah and declined the recommendation which had not happened in 25 years so at this point Tak Ohan was just like all right we're going to do this and he ended up getting his seventh Yow his second consecutive Zeno to finally get the Yokozuna rope and he would go on to win 15 more yho as Yokozuna takanohana was in fact the very first ozeki to get his Yokozuna rope with two consecutive 15 days Zeno records which was later equaled by Hara [Applause] muuji so other than the fact that I love historical based and chart-based episodes other than that why are we here today well we seem to be approaching a point right now where we are going to be out of Yokozuna very soon as much as I love Teran NE Fuji I don't think anyone expects him to really be wrestling at this point next year so who of our current crop of what seems to be relatively below average ozeki or possibly young hotness coming up might have a chance in the near future I think the first thing we can learn is that these rules are not written in stone they can change with the facts on the ground and I think if no one steps up in the next year to replace Teran nef Fuji we may see a return to the days of the dip number two 1987 was a year of change for Sumo and it is a sport that does not really like that much change but after the promotion of konishi to eki and the retire M of futago clearly things were very tight especially at that moment in time things have now fully returned to the loosen standard of like the 60s and 50s but as we can see with the promotions of kakadu and tan Fuji we're not holding ourselves to the tip must be to yho sandard anymore and number three with the exception of kishki and that one section where he won the 26 over two I do not see in the numbers anyway any pro-japanese bias where it comes to the promotion of Yokozuna if we consider that since our first non-japanese Yokozuna akono there have been 10 Yokozuna from akono to Teran Fuji and of those 10 seven of them have not been Japanese in fact of our last seven Yokozuna only one of them has been Japanese so that tells me if there is this giant push to try to keep Sumo Japanese they're not doing very well and if the JSA and the YDC were trying just to get that Japanese Yokozuna up there they've had multiple opportunities to promote takao and have not given him the benefit of the out so that tells me uh kishki accepted the JSA and the YDC are trying to hold to a standard of principle uh over time woo this one took a while to film as you may have seen from the lighting changing in through my open window for this entire filming process but thank you so much for watching if you have not yet please like And subscribe that just tells the YouTube algorithm that more people want to watch the doo which is correct right stay tuned to the channel we have all of our September boso coverage coming up which means boulderer predictions mid boso quick strikes and of course our exciting exciting recap that you are not going to want to miss so everyone stay safe stay strong stay healthy and I will see you next time on the doo [Applause]