One spanner-in-the-analysis that you don't seem to address is that there must always be at least two Ozeki on the banzuke. Yokozuna can occupy those positions, as has happened most recently before Kirishima's and Hōshōryu's promotions. I suspect (without looking at the specific tournament results) that this is the explanation for the extreme low data points.
One could imagine circumstances where a group of three or more talented, but aging Ozeki with no Yokozuna choke out the upper-level competition for a three-tournament stretch and share very high 13+ records and a yusho each. None of them obtain a record good enough to make Yokozuna, and after this spectacular effort at least two of them decide to retire after the third tournament. Now the promotion council is forced to choose a new Ozeki from a Sekiwake/Komusubi pool that has had their scorea debilitated by the very high results of now absent Ozeki, and you could end up with an Ozeki that has even lower results than 28 wins over 3 tournaments.
Thanks for the comment! So that definitely makes sense, and in fact, it wasn't Ozeki but Yokozuna (I'll likely dwell on this a bit because it will throw off the data otherwise in the Yokozuna post) where a similar problem did occur. The situation you're describing is pretty darn close to what led to Futahaguro being promoted to Yokozuna. The Ozeki position was quite strong, but not so for Yokozuna and he ended up getting the call and subsequently ignominiously became the only Yokozuna to never have a Yusho. My Japanese isn't great but I'm hoping eventually I can get good enough to eventually be able to do deeper dives with the primary sources for stories like that. I wouldn't be surprised if getting into the weeds in the outliers often offers better explanations along those lines.
As an aside, I actually make a tangent in my Ozeki preview post (should drop Friday) where I talk about Asanoyama getting promoted to Ozeki with a light resume given there was only one Ozeki at the time and this was during the middle of one of Takakeisho's swoons. Luckily Ozeki is in a stronger position right now so we likely don't need to "go easy" on wrestlers, and with any lucky we can say the same about Yokozuna later this year.
One spanner-in-the-analysis that you don't seem to address is that there must always be at least two Ozeki on the banzuke. Yokozuna can occupy those positions, as has happened most recently before Kirishima's and Hōshōryu's promotions. I suspect (without looking at the specific tournament results) that this is the explanation for the extreme low data points.
One could imagine circumstances where a group of three or more talented, but aging Ozeki with no Yokozuna choke out the upper-level competition for a three-tournament stretch and share very high 13+ records and a yusho each. None of them obtain a record good enough to make Yokozuna, and after this spectacular effort at least two of them decide to retire after the third tournament. Now the promotion council is forced to choose a new Ozeki from a Sekiwake/Komusubi pool that has had their scorea debilitated by the very high results of now absent Ozeki, and you could end up with an Ozeki that has even lower results than 28 wins over 3 tournaments.
Thanks for the comment! So that definitely makes sense, and in fact, it wasn't Ozeki but Yokozuna (I'll likely dwell on this a bit because it will throw off the data otherwise in the Yokozuna post) where a similar problem did occur. The situation you're describing is pretty darn close to what led to Futahaguro being promoted to Yokozuna. The Ozeki position was quite strong, but not so for Yokozuna and he ended up getting the call and subsequently ignominiously became the only Yokozuna to never have a Yusho. My Japanese isn't great but I'm hoping eventually I can get good enough to eventually be able to do deeper dives with the primary sources for stories like that. I wouldn't be surprised if getting into the weeds in the outliers often offers better explanations along those lines.
As an aside, I actually make a tangent in my Ozeki preview post (should drop Friday) where I talk about Asanoyama getting promoted to Ozeki with a light resume given there was only one Ozeki at the time and this was during the middle of one of Takakeisho's swoons. Luckily Ozeki is in a stronger position right now so we likely don't need to "go easy" on wrestlers, and with any lucky we can say the same about Yokozuna later this year.
Thanks for reading!