I've been following the spring tournament currently underway after it showed up in my Youtube recommendations, and it's been quite a surprise to see two rookies at the top of the tournament top division standings. Takerufuji, in his first top division tournament, is the sole undefeated competitor, and right behind him is Onosato in just his second tournament in the top division. These two faced off this morning.



It looks like Takerufuji will be facing the top veterans in the division from here on out, so it'll be interesting to see if he can keep his lead intact over the last 5 days of the tournament.

Huge congrats to Takerufuji for winning the tournament after an injury scare on day 14, making him the first rookie in 110 years to win the yusho.

I record "Fight Sports: Grand Sumo" and then binge watch several episodes on occasion. I really like it as a pure sport. I don't follow it close enough to know all the fighters, but I recognize a few.

Man they move so fast! They would be awesome lineman in football lol

Are either of them Mongolian? Some of the best Sumo wrestler have been Mongolian wrestlers in the modern times. Just being curious.

This is a Mongolian wrestler turned Sumo champion. He has thus retired but he is considered one of the best Sumo champion of all times. I believe he was around 6'6" 340 lbs. You can see that he had a lot of muscle going on. https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Mongolian+Sumo+Wrestler&FORM=IRIBIP

Takerufuji and Onosato are both native Japanese. The current yokozuna Terunofuji is Mongolian, as well as the the two guys ranked just below him (Kirishima and Hoshoryu).

Pre-tournament rankings for May are out today. Looks like Onosato and Takerufuji both got big promotions this round.

Onosato kicks off the May tournament with a huge win over the yokozuna.



Looks like that ankle injury Takerufuji suffered at the end of the last tournament is still bothering him, so he'll be sitting out this tournament.

Ura and Takayasu also looking strong today.

One third of the way through the tournament, and Ura is looking unstoppable right now.

Onosato showing off some shiftiness today.

I may be one of the few non-Japanese Aggies who has actually seen Sumo live in Japan.

It was fantastic in-person. If you get a chance to go... I highly recommend it.

I asked my kids where they wanted to go Internationally... and unanimously said Japan. We collected bucket list things to do and Sumo was one (mine).

So, I planned our trip around it. It was tricky. You had to get tickets from 3rd party and they didn't release the physical tickets until a certain date and we had to have them mailed to us... and get them before we left.

They arrived 2-3 days before our flight.

Our kids got great seats on mats in a box really close. We sat in normal stadium seats above them. I could see them with the lens of my camera.

As we started to enter they asked about our tickets and when they saw the ones our kids had, they were quickly rushed into a different entrance. I had some Yen, so I quickly handed it to them and didn't really get close to engage with them until we found them afterwards. They had a fantastic time.

I had planned to try to explain things, but the separation happened so quickly we couldn't set up a meeting place afterwards.

No worries... they enjoyed it. Later found out they were betting on the matches. LoL.

Boys ages 8-15.

Onosato takes the tournament with a 12-3 performance. If he keeps this up, he'll make ozeki by the end of the year.

That sounds like an awesome time, and it's definitely something I want to check out some day.