The New Year Grand Sumo Tournament is underway in Tokyo and there have already been a plethora of upsets. Ozeki and Yokozuna have all fallen to lower ranking wrestlers, with little consistency all round, excepting the mighty Hakuho. Most disturbingly has been the poor start of Yokozuna Kisenosato, whose injury in 2017 seems to have shaken both his confidence and capacity to wrestle. He is down 3-0 and has never really looked like winning any of the bouts. Having missed a number of basho in 2018 and now clearly under-performing, it seems likely he will retire any day now. In fact there is much speculation on this point and the consensus is that he is teetering.

It is a sad situation because Japanese yokozuna are few and far between these days, Mongolians dominating this category. There are some good Japanese wrestlers in the lower ranks who may rise to the top but Kisenosato offered much promise before his shoulder injury. Alas, I feel that his days are numbered and each bout might be his last appearance in the sport.

Yesterday he lost to top-ranking maegashira Tochiosan and below is the moment of his defeat. I hope that he can take stock and continue, but every loss adds to the mountain he must climb.