Re: A heavy subject

[Riley@hachi.hi-tech.ac.jp]

[Some dutiful research by Richard omitted here]

>It is at least obvious to me that Akebono's performance dropped when he
>added the weight.  Even though he got the yusho this basho, he should have
>done better being the yokozuna and all.  I think if the trend of weight
>gain in the past two bashos continues, we can't look forward to the string
>of three consecutive yushos we saw last year.  Konishiki has been talking
>weight loss since Nagoya in '92, but it doesn't seem to show.  If he can
>start losing weight, we might see some good things out of him for another
>year or so (but I doubt he will lose the weight).  Somehow you would think
>that these fellows would look at the success of some such as Taka and Waka
>who are slimmer and realize that weight isn't everything.

While weight is definitely a problem for the Hawaiians, the cases of
Konishiki and Akebono are a bit different.  Konishiki just got so big
that his knees have been devasted and he can no longer direct his mass
as he used to.  Akebono, though, has such long skinney legs that he
gets top-heavy now.  This puts him in a precarious situation when he
relies on the "tsuki" sumo, as it's easy to miss and be way off-balance.
He's adjusted his style in the past year to use more "yori" offense,
which is much more reliable.  I'd like to see him back around 210 kg,
as he was faster then, IMO.  I don't think we can just sit back and
say that he's gotten worse just because he's bigger, though.  I'm sure
he could've gone through some periods of thinking that "Well, I've
kicked some serious butt lately, so nobody's gonna stop me now," and
been a little lax at the training and a little more interested in the
chankonabe and girls.  I don't know, obviously.  

One thing about the talk of dominance in sumo is that I think this is
a time when sumo has gone through some changes, and we may not see the
kind of "one-man" sumo of the likes of Chiyonofuji for some time.  It
looks like these are the days of more parity among the rikishi, so we
can see Maegashira 13 winning the yusho (and yes, Kotofuji not only
went against san-yaku, but he beat them handily) as well as Yokozuna.
This makes it a little more exciting, if a little less "exacting" by
prior standards, IMO.

BTW, thanks again for all the nice e-mail from around the net!!  As
I sit up here in my non-ivory tower, it's good to see how nice people
are.  Hope to be able to get results out quicker in May.  Thanks also
to those who filled in the gaps this Basho.  

Mata nee....

David
riley@hachi.hi-tech.ac.jp