Sunday Sumo: July 2023 Height/Weight Scatterplot and Welcome Makuuchi Newbies!
by meep
One week to the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament, so it is time for me to update the height and weight scatterplot of the top wrestlers:
For the graph, the size of the “bubbles” merely indicates a wrestler’s rank.
The bigger the bubble, the higher the rank.
I made that design choice to make it easier to distinguish ranks, not merely by color, so that one can see all sorts of sizes are being represented at the very top ranks.
A few comments:
1. I spot-checked the heights and weights using the Japan Sumo Association’s official website as of today, 2 July 2023. There was no change from what I saw in May 2023, and I know official weigh-ins are done sporadically, so I know these weights may not be accurate.
2. I am always tickled by how “off-scale” some wrestlers are: Midorifuji and Hokuseiho are obvious ones, but Bushozan and Daishoho are also in the mix.
Welcome to the newbies
So you can more easily see them, here are the three newcomers:
These three are completely new to the Makuuchi division, with Hakuoho having reached Makuuchi in record time.
Hakuoho had been fighting under the shikona (or name under which he fought) of Ochiai, and switched it to Hakuoho as we was moving up to Makuuchi. As I mentioned in my prior Sunday Sumo post, wrestlers sometimes make a shikona change upon a significant promotion.
But check this out:
The above is from the sumo database, showing the three professional sumo tournaments the now Hakuoho has competed in. He has had a winning record in all three, but even more than that, he won the Makushita division in January (this year) and came in second place (he tied, and then lost the playoff match) in Juryo in the May tournament.
If it’s not clear, white shows wins and black shows losses in the above diagrams. A square is when the opponent is “fusen”, or you won due to default.
The other two wrestlers show a different pattern, to say the least.
Here you see the shikona change when Gonoyama had a promotion to Juryo, but this shows a strong progression, actually. He started in the Sandanme division (whereas Hakuoho started in Makushita), but that’s not unusual for his collegiate record in sumo.
Finally, Shonannoumi. I’ve got to break this one up.
Yes, he started in 2014, at the very bottom, at the age of 16. That’s not that unusual, either.
Shonannoumi is currently 25 years old, and taking this long to get up to top ranks, given he started at the age of 16, makes a lot of sense. Many men continue to gain in height into their late teens and even early 20s, and of course most sumo wrestlers take many years to develop.
He did not change his shikona, as you can see. It’s not a requirement. It’s just that some rikishi do change it sometimes.
Sumo memes
Instead of stealing it from my beloved SumoMemes subreddit, I made this one:
Yeah, I can’t get enough Ura Memes.
This one, however, I did steal:
Yeah, those are sure-fire winners.
Just one more week til the tournament…
