[On topic][spoiler][sumo][no top posting] Tochiazuma and Hakuhou

[Doreen]

On 2007/05/06, at 15:51, Moti wrote:

> After being admonished by the YDC and Kitanoumi rijicho for his weak 
> soken performance , especially his pathetic bout against Asashouryuu, 
> Hakuhou had this to say:
> "He did a slight henka so I wasn't ready. Earlier, I saw him flexing 
> his left elbow and he seemed in pain..", he explained, hinting he 
> didn't go all out so as not to aggravate the Yokozuna's injury.
> I guess the reporter edited out the "dog ate my homework" part.
>
FWIW, I thought the Soken was pretty much a PR activity. Great fun, and 
brought a lot of potential ticket-buyers in, but a real Soken, it was 
not. This was evidenced by the fact that, for the first time,  about 
two-thirds of the oyakata did not come at all in to take their seats on 
either the east or the west sides. On the east side, Kokonoe oyakata 
(former yokozuna Chiyonofuji,) was very much in evidence, with the 
chairman of main sponsor Nagatani-en sitting beside him. But the 
remaining seats to his left remained unoccupied.

Once again we were treated to the spectacle of the junior newspaper 
reporters (who are not sumo specialists but are assigned to this job by 
their editors) pretending to be experts. Personally I don't  bother to 
read much of this stuff. Occasionally a junior reporter gets the 
message, but a lot of the boilerplate stuff just slips by.



Doreen Simmons
  jz8d-smmn at asahi-net.or.jp