Report Card: 2025 Natsu Basho - Part 2 (also, I got a store!)

Continuing to grade the top division rikishi who were involved in the May. tournament.

Hey all. I’ve got more grads for you. This time I’m looking at Rōga, Kotoshōhō, Sadanoumi, Tokihayate, Takanoshō, Atamifuji, Shishi and Endō.

This is a premium piece that cuts off in the Atamifuji section. If you want to read all this, along with all the other premium pieces coming down the pipeline (and those in the archive), you’ll need a paid subscription. I keep these as low as Substack will let me.

Paid subs support this blog and empower me to continue to create sumo content.

---

And there’s another way you can support Sumo Stomp!

I finally have a merch store! A big thank you goes out to reader Marcus, who helped me a tremendous amount in figuring this process out and picking the right store for me. He also refused to take any kind of compensation for all that help. On Marcus’ advice, I’m using the company TPOP to make print on demand products. They are based in France and they focus on making products that are environmentally friendly. Their products use organic cotton and recycled textiles. Despite that their prices (for both the blank products and shipping) are very reasonable. Right now I have stickers, hats, mugs, t-shirts and hoodies up for sale. If you subscribe to Sumo Stomp! you have a 15% discount on all purchases. You can find the promo code for that at the bottom of this post (keep it secret, keep it safe, please).

Bonus gif today is Atamifuji, who got an OK grade for May.

“Now I can afford that white and purple hoodie, bro, it looks sick!”

Now, for those grades…

Rōga

Rank: Maegashira 14 West
Record: 9-6
Grade: B

Rōga had a good tournament and he needed one. His 9-6 record equals his career best finish. He spent the last tournament in jūryō after an injury hit January. I expected someone as talented and young as Rōga to bounce right back up to the top division and stay here. However, sumo is filled with stories of guys who hit a rough patch and were never able to get back on track.

Rōga is a hidari-yotsu (left arm inside, right arm outside grip) player and he was able to get most of his wins using that hold. He likes to use a mae-mitsu (front of belt grip) with his left hand off the tachiai and then creep that hand into a more wide position on the belt. His outside right arm is especially strong, he really turns over his wrist to force opponents back. Defensively, in this position, he likes to hook with his right leg to prevent himself being turned.

He did also get a few wins with a migi-yotsu (right arm inside, left arm outside) and a moro-zashi (double inside grip) win, but they weren’t that comfortable.

Rōga’s biggest struggles were against fellow young and strong yotsu specialists. Atamifuji, Asakōryū and Ōnokatsu were all able to beat him for their preferred inside positions and then get the win.

See Atamifuji prevent him getting his left arm inside off the tachiai below. Atamifuji forced his right arm on the inside, establishing the migi-yotsu for both men. You can then see how much more comfortable Atamifuji was working from that position.

His bout with Ōnokatsu was especially technical and entertaining. Ōnokatsu prefers hidari-yotsu. But he didn’t want to lock it up on Rōga right off the tachiai (since that would give Rōga a matching hidari-yotsu, too). Ōnokatsu pushed Rōga’s left arm away and then secured a right arm inside position. He then quickly switched to an inside left arm position and used his free arm to block Rōga getting his own inside left position. When he couldn’t get his left arm inside, Rōga found himself being dragged around and eventually pushed out.

Ōnokatsu took a big step forward in this tournament. Rōga has yet to do that in the top division. Right now he’s a good yotsu-zumō wrestler, but I don’t see him in the san’yaku any time soon. To get there he needs to do better at securing his preferred grip on better opponents and being more effective with his alternative grips. He uses his leg hooks for defense, but it could benefit him to be more offensive with those and look for sotogake (outside leg trip) and uchigake (inside leg trip) wins, too.

Kotoshōhō

Rank: Maegashira 14 East
Record: 6-4-5
Grade: C

Kotoshōhō put on a really gutsy display in May. He missed the first five days of the tournament with a thigh injury. When he returned on Day 6 he had his back against a wall, knowing he could only afford three losses in the next ten days to avoid a make-koshi (losing record). He won on his return, slapping down Takanoshō and then took a loss to Atamifuji. He then won five straight to keep his kach-koshi (winning record) hopes alive. Unfortunately, for him, a soaring Sadanoumi threw him down on Day 14 for his eighth loss.

Kotoshōhō needs to have the Japanese for ‘controlled chaos’ pinned onto a bulletin board somewhere. Whenever he fights like that he does very well. When he lets the chaos spill over and become out of control, he often loses.

His slap down on Takanoshō was a great example of controlled chaos. He stuck his fellow pusher/thruster with a moroto-tsuki (double arm thrust) and then artfully slid back and away to provide room for the hatakikomi (slap down).

An example of chaos getting the better of him is when he fought Shonannoumi. In that bout he lowered his head and charged from too far away, giving ‘The Big Slo’ too much time to side-step. After he missed that big target, Kotoshōhō spun off the ring and into the shimpan (judge).

That didn’t happen a lot in this tournament, though. More often than not, Kotoshōhō looked quite measured and I think he deserves credit for going 6-4 in his ten bouts.

Sadanoumi

Rank: Maegashira 13 West
Record: 10-5, kanto-sho
Grade: A

Sadanoumi fought with a big chip on his shoulder in May, seeking to remind people that — despite his age — he’s still a force to be reckoned with. Sadanoumi is my ultimate gatekeeper for the lower maegashira ranks. If you can’t beat him, then you’re probably not cut out for the makuuchi (top division). In this tournament, though, Sadanoumi was far more than a gatekeeper. He was a menace! This was the 38 year-old’s best finish since his improbable jun-yusho (runner-up finish) back in 2022. This effort also earned him his third career kanto-sho (Fighting Spirit award).

Sadanoumi is a migi-yotsu guy. But his yotsu-zumō is about as aggressive as you can be with that style. He’s not a big hug-and-chugger. He likes to thrash his opponents around like he’s a crocodile and they are a wildebeest. This thrashing leads to lots of uwatenage (under arm throw) wins. He finishes almost 10 percent of his bouts with that move, shucking his opponents onto one foot and then rotating them over with his strong outside grip. The average win rate by uwatenage in all of Grand Sumo is around 5 percent.

Sadanoumi is also fearless with his sumō. He’s not afraid of going into the seats, as we saw with his crush out on Ryūden. His lack of fear helps him do very well against pusher/thrusters, too. He will not back down from thrusts to the face, or headbutts, and he’ll save his wincing until after the fight is done. In this tournament he beat every pusher/thruster he faced (Tochitaikai, Tamashōhō, Kinbōzan, Kayo and Kotoshōhō). He also beat Meisei, who is a yotsu guy, but he has very good pushes and thrusts.

In this bout Meisei got the better of the tachiai. He followed that up by trying to pull Sadanoumi out of position. Sadanoumi is still quick, though. He was able to pivot and get square to Meisei before Meisei could drive against his shoulder. Sadanoumi then traded thrusts with Meisei to disguise his entry to the hidari-yotsu. That’s not Sadanoumi’s preferred grip, but he can still thrash from that position. This resulted in him turning Meisei completely around, and taking him off one foot, for the easy force out.

Tokihayate

Rank: Maegashira 13 East
Record: 8-7
Grade: C+

After a stellar March tournament, Tokihayate flew under the radar in May, scraping by with a bare minimum kachi-koshi. He earned his winning record with a final day win over Hakuōhō. This performance was far from his March exploits, where he went 10-5 and almost sneaked into a play-off, but it wasn’t bad at all. This winning record gave Tokihayate the first back-to-back makuuchi kachi-koshi of his career and further showed he’s a top division quality wrestler.

Tokihayate might be the fastest wrestler in the top division. He’s very quick off the line in the tachiai and sometimes catches opponents off guard. He’s also very quick to close distance and finish off quick, and forceful, yorikiri (frontal force out) wins. He also gas great stamina. In longer battles with Shishi and Shōnannoumi he didn’t slow down and you could see both those larger, slower opponents eventually break before Tokihayate took them down.

His losses mostly came against fellow yotsu wrestlers. His lack of size was exploited in losses to Nishikigi, Atamifuji, Ryūden and Ōnokatsu. His belt grappling is best when he’s able to turn and pull opponents both backwards and forwards. He gets side on to his opponents when this happens and his able to execute his throws, which are very good.

When those bigger opponents can’t be budged and they force Tokihayate to go chest-to-chest he struggles to find the angle he needs for those throws and his other destabilizing techniques. He got stuck in moro-zashi against both Atamifuji and Tamashōhō. He should try and avoid that position at all costs. In both those situations he lost. Atamifuji used the painful kimedashi (arm barring force out) on him and Tamashōhō, who is not a grappler, was able to use his size to force him out from that position.

Takanoshō

Rank: Maegashira 12 West
Record: 8-7
Grade: C-

In May Takanoshō bounced back from his awful March, where he went 3-12. However, this 8-7 was a little underwhelming given how low Takanoshō was ranked. He scored 10-5 records that last two times he was at M12 and it was less than a year ago when he pushed Terunofuji to a play-off.

In this tournament he was just OK. I think Takanoshō is an example of “good being the enemy of great”. He’s very good and I think he could be great, if he had the killer mentality that we see from ōzeki, yokozuna and the wrestlers who want to be them. He has excellent size and very long arms. His opening nodowa (throat thrust) can be very effective. A few times last month he powered opponents half way across the ring with that and then finished them off with one or two more thrusts.

When he can’t get the job done with thrusts he looks for the migi-yotsu. He’s not terribly effective as a grappler, but his size helps him a lot in those situations.

What holds Takanoshō back is that his sumō can be quite slow, plodding and telegraphed. If he dug deep and fought with more intensity each bout, I think opponents would find it harder to predict what he’s going to do. As things stand, his long thrusts are often well timed by opponents who then step aside or back and push him down. Rōga, Kotoshōhō, Shōdai and Kayo were all able to do this in May.

Takanoshō loses by hatakikomi over 17 percent of the time. That’s his second most common losing kimarite (finishing move). The average hatakikomi loss rate among all wrestlers is 8 percent. And that’s all down to how lethargic some of his thrusts can be, especially the ones that come after he doesn’t score a quick win.

If he could clean up that area of his game, then I think he’s a regular komusubi/sekiwake. But at 30, he’s not likely to make big changes in his sumō.

Atamifuji

Rank: Maegashira 12 East
Record: 8-7
Grade: C

Atamifuji rescued a kachi-koshi with a kotenage (arm lock throw) on Nishikigi on the final day of the May tournament. That was a great moment for him. But it only came due to him striking out on the four previous days when trying to get his all important eighth victory. During that barren spell he lost to Asakoryu and Kayo, two rikishi ranked four and five spots below him.

Atamifuji is still only 22. The upcoming Nagoya basho will mark his twelfth makuuchi basho in a row. That’s a huge achievement for him and I don’t see him dropping out of the top division anytime soon. For Atamifuji the question is whether he will be good or great. Unlike Takanoshō, he has time on his side to make changes to become great.

Like Takanoshō, Atamifuji’s hurdles often seem to be mental…