March Sumo Midway
One good thing that's come of this year so far is the sumo - it's been really interesting stuff.
A negative is that it's been very injury driven - The two yokozuna were off-form in January and Onosato has withdrawn winless from March, Hakunofuji, Midorifuji, Abi and Onokatsu have all had full or partial withdrawals this month. Not to mention the weird Isegahama stuff hanging over Haku - but that's politics.
The actual action on the clay has been great though. Aonishiki scraping his way to a January yusho over Atamifuji, who himself seems to be in great form after a dip having apparently gotten even bigger. Now the biggest guy in the top division, he was in one of the spectacles of the basho yesterday against the smallest competitor in Makuuchi, Fujinokawa. In a bout that risked looking like a chihuahua harrassing a bulldog, the chihuahua stood his ground and got a strong win.
The man of the hour recently, Aonishiki, has got off to a very rough start but has managed to recover to 5-5 from 3-5. He's guaranteed his worst tournament in the top division, but a perfect 5-0 from here will mean he ties his 10-5 from his debut in the 15-match format back in November 2024. He's on gatekeeper duty for now, facing those in the yusho race he hasn't yet fought before he takes on Hoshoryu and his fellow Ozeki - an uphill battle for sure. His main goal is just to get an 8th win and avoid risking his rank next tournament.
The two stars have been Kirishima and Gonoyama though - leading the tournament at 9-1 from very different positions.
Kirishima is a Sekiwake on an Ozeki return run, technically needing 2 more wins to hit 33-in-3-basho, but realistically requiring at least 3 more if not 4 given his low starting rank. I didn't like his odds two weeks ago, but he looks extremely sharp against recent opponents Daiesho and Takanosho. The problem is he has the top 3 guys ahead of him - he has a decent record against Hoshoryu, a great one against Kotozakura, and his few matches with Aonishiki have gone against him. With Aonishiki's recent form Kirishima is probably favourite to win 2 of those 3 so the promotion looks very plausible.
His rival Gonoyama is way down the banzuke at Maegashira 10 East - 27th position to Kirishima's 5th - so his opposition so far has been much softer. He fell to this rank due to a disastrous 1-14 basho in September, and has been treading water since. This basho his highest ranked opponent was M8e, Kirishima's lowest was M4w. That said, he's looked great doing it, and for the last few bouts will have no free wins. It's really exciting to see Gonoyama keeping his balance and blasting his opponents off the dohyo.
The spicy part is that the two leaders face each other next before their gauntlet of tougher opponents, so we'll have a clear leader at the end of play tomorrow.
I encourage you to join watching! This isn't the craziest basho of recent times, but it's got a lot of storylines! The easiest way imo is at twitch.tv/midnightsumo, where you can watch live (top division from about 7am GMT) or on a roughly 7 hour delay. He loops the stream until the next day starts and his chat is very spoiler averse and active on the replays so you can get the full watching experience even if it's live at an unsociable hour for you.