Hoshoryu: Ozeki - Narrative, Numbers, Nostradamus
Howdy all! Hopefully your day is going well. Today we’re going to do something similar to a post I did on Kotonowaka where I took a look at how he reached Ozeki, how he compares to other Ozeki and Yokozuna, and if I think he has what it takes to make it to Yokozuna. I actually might be a little controversial with my opinion on that final question of if he’s Yokozuna material or not, so hopefully that hooks you if the idea of looking at numbers didn’t. Let’s begin.
Hoshoryu has quite auspicious beginnings for being a top wrestler: not only is he from a Mongolian family of wrestlers, but that family also includes his uncle, former Yokozuna, Asashoryu. He eventually moved to Japan, and those brushes with sumo historical greatness continued as his Maezumo debut was against then Naya, whom you may be more familiar with as the now Oho, grandson of former Yokozuna, Taiho (Hoshoryu lost). Hoshoryu quickly showed his potential by clearing Jonokuchi, winning Jonidan, and clearing Sandanme all in one tournament each.
Makushita took him a little longer to conquer, but after 6 tournaments, he reached Juryo, where he notably was in a 6 way tie for the lead in the tournament in July 2020. Despite not being able to win that Yusho, he reached the Makuuchi in the following tournament, September 2020 and hasn’t been back down to Juryo since. He was just 21 and a few months old (21.3 in decimal form for later in the piece).
A trend I notice quite frequently in careers is future top tier talents and elite prospects performing well in the lower to mid Maegashira ranks, getting promoted to the Joi, and then being sent back down after hitting the wall of top tier wrestlers. A good recent example is Atamifuji being in contention for the Yusho in November only to learn there really are levels to this game when facing Ozeki in week 2. Even still he got promoted to Maegashira 1, and because he’s still young and relatively inexperienced, went 6-9 in January ‘24. Hoshoryu presents an interesting contrast. He just ground his way up the banzuke with 7, 8, and 9 win tournaments.
After going 7-8 in November of 2021, he has gotten Kachi-Koshi every tournament since. With 11 wins in November of 2022 at Sekiwake he was on a potential Ozeki run. As an aside, one of my favorite parts of sumo in 2023 was having that coterie of wrestlers1 that all looked like potential Ozeki and seeing who has actually fulfilled that so far. Ultimately, it was going 10-5 in March, 11-4 in May, and 12-3 and winning the Yusho in July 2023 that got him there. With 33 wins and a Yusho, it was a relatively straightforward promotion to Ozeki (piece looking at successful runs here). It took him just 18 tournaments to reach the rank.
So how does his progression compare to others? I’ll start with the more flattering comp which is how quickly he reached Ozeki from his Makuuchi debut.
So here we can see that Hoshoryu’s quick rise to Ozeki is below the average, albeit above the median. So just about smack dab in the middle. Here’s a fun fact for you: it took Terunofuji just 8 tournaments to reach Ozeki from his Makuuchi debut. The only man to best that is Taiho. And now to look at his age relative to future Yokozuna.
Wow do those Yokozuna make their Makuuchi debuts young. That never fails to amaze me. So unlike Kotonowaka, Hoshoryu debuted within the standard deviation for Yokozuna. In fact, he debuted perfectly in between the average age for Yokozuna and Ozeki.
Thinking of these stats, age at Makuuchi debut is a stat I’m pretty confident is meaningful for future performance. If you’re better at a younger age, then likely you have even more room to improve. Furthermore, you’re likely healthy and young so you have more opportunities to fight in Makuuchi while healthy. How quickly a wrestler reaches Ozeki is also a good stat for similar reasons. I almost am done coding up the Elo. When I have that, it’ll give me a bunch more data to look at and see if there are any other good predictors for future Yokozuna. An additional stat I’d like to look at is how wrestlers do against Yokozuna. That’s also a stat I don’t have ready-to-hand so it could be some time before I have it. As a result, I’m sticking with my relatively trusty stats here for today, but will probably go back and review Hoshoryu and Kotonowaka if I find other solid predictors.
So do I think Hoshoryu is a future Yokozuna? Long story short: unless he improves, I do not believe so. I know this might be a little controversial. He has a lot going for him: he’s got solid size, and to my eyes, he has good technique - I associate Yokozuna with the guys who have a varied skillset. Maybe they excel at one technique, but they’re guys that can win in any type of sumo match. This one is intangible, but he just looks the part too. He reminds me of young Mike Tyson before a fight starts where you can just see the intensity in his eyes. I’d hate to wrestle any rikishii, but Hoshoryu would be towards the top of the list in terms of guys I’d least want to face. Besides the eye test, looking at the numbers above, I see him as smack dab in the middle of the kinds of achievements future Yokozuna have reached at similar levels and ages.
So why am I hesitant to pronounce him a future Yokozuna? Well, it boils down to simple math. As discussed in the piece on What Makes a Yokozuna, no modern Yokozuna has reached the rank with fewer than 26 wins all the way back to ‘87. Let’s say they’re lenient on Hoshoryu and they allow a 12 win Jun-Yusho followed by a 13 win Yusho reach Yokozuna. That’s no guarantee, but the bigger problem is this: Hoshoryu has never won 13 matches in a tournament. This goes all the way through his entire career. In fact, he only has won 12 matches in a tournament once in his career, July 2023.
Until Hoshoryu can win 13 in a tournament, I’ll continue to be skeptical of his odds because the margin for error is just so small. In the above scenario, even assuming the Yokozuna Deliberation Council is lenient on the win totals, as we saw last week, just over 50% of Ozeki have been promoted with a Jun-Yusho followed by a Yusho. So again, it seems a bit reductionist, but they’re the facts of the matter: he’ll likely have to hit a win total he’s never hit for a Yokozuna promotion, and he’ll have to do that twice in a row.
If you want the optimist case for why he could reach Yokozuna, I’m on your side rooting for him to do it and have some reasons to think he can.
He has an incredible amount of time and opportunity
By reaching Ozeki at a relatively young age, and with few injuries (that I’m aware of), this means that he’ll have many bites at the apple in the future. Furthermore, as this is Yokozuna, he only needs to string together 2 tournaments in a row (vs 3 for Ozeki promotion).
It took Mienoumi, Kotozakura, and Kisenosato all 10 years or more to reach Yokozuna from their Makuuchi debut. Hoshoryu is currently in his 3rd year in the top division. So long as he’s at Ozeki, he’ll be accruing chances to reach the top, and he has reason to feel good about that because the next point is…
Hoshoryu is a relatively reliable wrestler
If you go through his career, after his first couple dominant performances in the lower ranks of sumo, he’s been fairly reliable at getting Kachi-Koshi, often with a few extra wins, or just barely missing a winning record.
In tournaments Hoshoryu has competed everyday, he’s never gotten fewer than 7 wins, or 3 wins for the lower divisions.
This means we can feel confident about him staying at Ozeki, and not having to worry about potentially losing his rank - again, absent injury
He continuously steadily improves
I don’t have the Elo ratings available yet, but as we can tell by looking at his record, Hoshoryu has a pattern. He wins, he moves up, he quickly acclimates himself to the higher level, and then he starts winning again.
This has meant he hasn’t had the highest win totals as he’s always been facing a healthy level of competition.
Now he’s at the top and Yokozuna is the only further level for him to improve to. He has been improving, which is why he had his first 12 win tournament recently.
All of the above is fairly compelling evidence for him to make Yokozuna sooner or later. Still, I just don’t know if I’m ready to sign on to him continuing improving indefinitely. Not only that, but there’s some real talent at the top right now, and it looks like more could be coming pretty soon. Again, with only 2 losses he can take in a tournament for the final promotion, the prospect of having Kirishima also in his prime, Kotonowaka also a young up and comer, and for now Yokozuna Terunofuji sometimes too and then Takakeisho? And it’s not like the rest of the Joi is weak now either. If Hoshoryu can win 13 matches in a tournament I’ll turn my opinion around, but until then I need to see it to believe it. I hope he proves me wrong!
So to sum the piece up, Hoshoryu made his way to the top relatively quickly, and without any major stumbles along the way. He occasionally had a losing tournament, but generally speaking, he never moved down the Banzuke very far, and he quickly leveled up to be able to consistently beat that competition. It’s landed him all the way at Ozeki with an alacrity similar to future Yokozuna. Furthermore, he’s still relatively young and healthy. With his skills, the only question on him making Yokozuna is if he can keep improving like he has all the way up to now.
Hoshoryu, Kiribayama (now Kirishima), Kotonowaka, Daiesho, Wakatakakage, and perhaps even an (at times) resurgent Takayasu, among others