Akebono vs. other Konishiki + Musashimaru

[Martin Hughes <mhughes@fhs.csu.McMaster.CA>]

A couple of days ago, someone posted a message re. Akebono's match vs.
Konishiki, saying it was rather lame.

Apologies to whoever it was for paraphrasing, and not quoting, but I have
deleted the message!  

Upon reflection, it seems to me that all the matches I saw between the 3
major gaijin were somewhat lame.  The winner always seemed to be
'predictable'.
By this I mean that if it looked as if Konishiki may have been promoted to
Yokazuna, then Akebono and Musashimaru seemed to fall over.  Akebono's
promotion, and over went Konishiki and Musashimaru etc. etc.  Now, (a)
maybe my memory is selective, (b) I havn't seen a match for a couple of
years, and (c) I am certainly not suggesting that
any underhand stuff went on, but I do wonder if the matches are so built up
in the minds of the rikishi that the fights never turn out to be the classics
which one would like.

Now, to follow this thread of though a bit, I wonder if (at least to
start with) such a problem would exist if you removed the 'same heya' rule.
Would Tak vs. Wak matches be limp squids (limp ika?) to start off with (I
don't count the exhibition matches as being a true reflection of what would
happen) because of exadurated expectations?

Martin Hughes
Department of Biochemistry
McMaster University
Hamilton, ONTARIO, Canada.