2026 Haru Banzuke prediction results: Takanoshō to M4?!
The rankings for March are out, let's see how close they were to my predictions.
Hey everyone, this one’s a bit overdue I’m afraid. Sorry about that. I’m still in the thick of studies and field placement (to go along with work and parenting). I will be all done with school (maybe for good) in about six weeks, though! I’m going to weep with relief once this period in my life is over and I have my diploma to show for it (I’ve worked really hard to get it).
For now, though, I’m talking banzuke. Before the March banzuke dropped I tried to predict where everyone in the makuuchi would be ranked. And… I did pretty good.
Check it out!
Bonus gif today is an exhausted Tobi.
Here’s the entire actual banzuke, with some extra columns for past records, net wins and rank changes.
The green highlights represent where I was exactly right with my prediction. Yellow highlights mean I was half a rank off (M1e instead of M1w, for example). Orange means I was a single rank off. And red means I was off by more than that.
I was exactly right on fifteen wrestlers and was within half a rank for thirteen of them. I was way off on seven predictions. This is almost exactly how I did the last time I did this.
Below is my full banzuke prediction, for comparison’s sake.
Let’s get into some specifics.
Yokozuna, Ōzeki and san’yaku
No surprises here. I was all green in this section. That took no great prowess from me or anything. It was all pretty obvious where these guys would sit in the rankings. The only real question marks were whether Wakamotoharu or Atamifuji would take the slightly more prestigeous east side of the banzuke. As you can see, Wakamotoharu — who fought from a higher rank in January — was given the nod.
The jōi
I had this mostly picked correctly. The only person who I didn’t include in my jōi ranking was Takanoshō. I had him slipping just a little bit further and I thought Abi would be able to leap frog him and take that last spot at maegashira 4 west.
I can’t be blamed for not seeing how leniant this rank demotion would be for Takanoshō, though, given how bizarre it is. I had him…
