Re: Yaocho - whose fault is it really?

[Masumi Abe <abe@accesscom.com>]

Seems like at least some of the members didn't read the post I wrote as "my
previous post" which corrected my first post about this issue. This is the one
I corrected my original post after Doreen posted that Itai did not mention
anything about the list of 17 rikishi. This is not for telling the ML that my
first post was right, but to proof that I followed with my correction. And this
is the post I mentioned as "my previous post".

-Toshiyori Masumiriki

-----------------
Subject:
               Re: SUMO: Itai & Yaocho
         Date:
               Wed, 02 Feb 2000 08:59:43 -0800
        From:
               Masumi Abe <abe@accesscom.com>
           To:
               Sumo ML <sumo@brooks.statgen.ncsu.edu>
 References:
               1




The list of "yaocho" rikishi and the matches Itai thought they are
very
suspicious are not from the press meeting, but from Weekly Gendai, a
weekly
magazine published by Kodansha. This weekly magazine is a good (or
bad?) rival
to Weekly Post published by Shogakukan. Both are major book and
magazine
publishers in Japan. Their typical targeted readers are middle-aged
and older
Japanese men.

-Masumi


Doreen Simmons wrote:

> At 0:32 -0800 2/2/00, Masumi Abe wrote:
> > Former Sekiwake Itai came back to Foreign Press Center in Tokyo
and
> > talked about yaocho in Ozumo the second time.
>
> Foreign Correspondents' Club.  The FPC is a small Japanese
foundation set up
> to assist foreign media.
>
> He insisted that his story
> > is the truth. He said all his three matches against Takamiyama,
current
> > Azumazeki Oyakata, and all four matches against Kotonishiki.
> >
> > Itai's List of Yaocho Rikishi as of Kyushu-basho in 1999
> > Akebono, Chiyotaikai, Kotonowaka, Kotonishiki, Hamanoshima,
Kyokushuzan,
> > Terao, Kaiho, Minatofuji, Asanowaka, Higonoumi, Shikishima,
Aogiyama,
> > Asanosho, Otsukasa, Tokitsuumi, Ohinode.
>
> I don't recall hearing this list of names. He merely said he stood
by
> everything he had said last time. In fact, he became noticeably
shy about
> making any new accusations, especially when he began getting
questions from
> three or four people who showed that they were not depending on
him for
> information about sumo.
>
> My own question was: "At the time of your retirement, I heard a
lot of
> people say that the Kyokai refused you permission to hold a public
> hair-cutting ceremony. Is this true? And, if it is true, doesn't
it indicate
> that the Kyokai was well aware of your activities and took this
step to
> punish you and to warn others?" There was dead silence from the
whole room.
> Then he fudged: "I held my own haircutting ceremony.....". Not
much later
> Marty Kuehnert, a well-known sports writer,  asked several
increasingly
> tough questions, really pressing him about who knew what, and when
(and
> trying to link him with his stablemaster, Onaruto oyakata - Itai
refused to
> be drawn and insisted he had no knowledge of the matters in
Onaruto's
> accusations - as if nobody knew it was his own stablemaster in a
very small
> stable!);  the answers got more vague or evasive. The newbies
asked some
> more polite questions but it was clear to most people, I think,
that this
> press conference was not going as smoothly as the first. He
started refusing
> to name any more names, saying that you always forget a thrown
bout. A
> Japanese journalist even asked him if it was true that he owed a
lot of
> money to a present member of the Kyokai and was he now going
public because
> of debt problems: he replied indignantly that that was a really
low kind of
> question, and that he was concerned only to see honest sumo.
>
> I'll be interested to see what reports come out this time. Sorry
I'm too
> tired to write more. Please bear in mind, too, that I am writing
from memory
> at the end of a very long and busy day.
>
> Doreen in sumoland
>
> ♪Telepathic message follows:♪

-----------------------------------


Doreen Simmons wrote:

> At 16:06 -0800 4/2/00, Masumi Abe wrote:
> > As I posted before, the name of 17 rikishi and the speculative
> > matches are the ones in the article based on an interview of
> > Itai. The magazine is Shukan Gendai or Weely Gendai copy I own.
> > It's not an imagination of me or the weekly magazine. If it is an
> > imagination, that is of Mr. Itai himself.
>
> > Moti-kun wrote:
> > >
> > > > Of the 17 yaocho rikishi at Kyushu listed by Itai, twelve
> > > > definitely fit the category of Maegashira rikishi, and a case
> > > > could be made for one or two others.
> > >
> > > I think it was clarified that he didn't name names and that the 17
> > > rikishis mentioned were a figment of another newspaper's imagination' as
> > > per Doreen who was actually there..
>
> No, let's get this quite clear. Abe-san posted the introductory statement
> made by Itai at the beginning of the second press conference, and then in
> the next sentence he added the list of names copied from Shukan Gendai,
> without saying that it came from a different source. Anybody not knowing the
> facts would have thought that Abe-san was still reporting the content of the
> second press conference. In cases like this, it is important to make it
> clear who said what, and when, and where -- especially since the tide turned
> quite noticeably in that second conference.
>
> I'm busy trying to write an article on the whole phenomenon  of "decade-old
> scandal becomes world news"  and "notorious bout-fixer finds a conscience
> nine years after retirement, coincidentally at the same time as his
> restaurant is in financial trouble, rakes up exactly same dirt as his own
> former mentor and stablemaster but spices it up with names of today's big
> stars" -- so don't want to join this thread too actively. If it gets into
> print, I'll certainly try to get permission to copy it to the list. Those in
> Japan, look out for tomorrow's Japan Times. Sunday is when Marty Kuehnert's
> sports column comes out, and he was really pushing the questions.
>
> Doreen in sumoland
>
> ♪Telepathic message follows:♪

--
*********************************************************
* Masumi Abe (aka Masumiriki / Imanonami)
* mailto: abe@accesscom.com
* WWW: http://www.accesscom.com/~abe
* from Sapporo through Tokyo to Palo Alto, California
*********************************************************
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