Natsu '24 - Potential Yokozuna and Ozeki Preview + Full Banzuke Prediction Review (2024)

It’s that time again. Hopefully you’re as excited as I am for another tournament. Luckily for me and the deliberation councils, just like in Haru we almost certainly aren’t going to see a new Yokozuna or Ozeki crowned after this tournament. Still, there’s a slight chance for both, and I like to highlight some interesting guys and what they might have to do to be in consideration down the line. I also will provide the results from comparing my full Banzuke predictions to the actual Banzuke showing where I did well, and which divisions or areas we might want to refine the algorithm further.

Potential Yokozuna Preview

Hoshoryu O1E: Last tournament 11-4 Jun-Yusho

So the magic number to get promoted to Yokozuna is 26. With his 11 wins, he in theory could do it, but in reality he probably does not go Zensho as he’s never won more than 12 times in a single tournament. That was Nagoya ‘23. Still, I do wonder if he somehow won 14 matches and the Yusho, with a Jun-Yusho preceding it, how that would be treated. If Terunofuji misses another tournament do they feel pressure to get a Yokozuna who can show up more often? I would guess not, but I’ll never reject an interesting proposition like that; it would be a neat data point to have.

None of the other top guys won more than 10, but I will be excited to see if Kirishima can bounce back. Please note that former Kotonowaka has now adopted the Shikona Kotozakura, after his grandfather, 53rd Yokozuna Kotozakura. Very neat. Who knows how it will work out, but I’m rooting for Takakeisho as always. He had 8 wins last time out so no pressure this tournament.

Potential Ozeki Preview

Wakamotoharu S1E - Mar ‘24 9-6, Jan ‘24: 10-5

With Ozeki, the magic number is 32 wins over 3 tournaments, and I doubt Wakamotoharu gets to 13 wins. Unfortunately for him too, the Joi is starting to look a lot stronger compared to the past couple years. The top prospects are reaching the upper ranks so it’s only getting harder to win day to day.

Abi S1W - Mar ‘24 9-6

He’s been able to stick in the Joi a lot longer than I thought. 9-6 at Sekiwake is a good starting point for an Ozeki run, so we’ll see if his aggressive brand of sumo works.

Asanoyama K1E - Mar ‘24 9-6

I’m actually higher on his chances than Abi or Wakamotoharu. His biggest problem is staying in the tournament. When he’s been wrestling, he’s done pretty well, but again, it’s tough when there are guys with so much skill and youth on their side. I’m a fan so I’ll root for him to get back to Ozeki; I think it would be a nice story.

Onosato K1W - Mar ‘24 11-4 Jun-Yusho from Maegashira 5W

I included his rank from the last tournament, because despite him doing so well, I think at Maegashira 5 West, with that low of a rank it will not be included in an Ozeki run. I feel fairly confident in that, but the good news is, at Komosubi 1 West he’ll definitely be eligible for the first tournament of an Ozeki run if he does well enough. Unless injuries come into play, he certainly looks like he’s skilled enough to put up 10 or more wins, which would be a good start for an Ozeki run.

Atamifuji M1E - Mar ‘24 8-7

It’s easy to forget Atamifuji with how well the other top prospects have done, but he’s still 21 this tournament, and Nagoya in July too. He looked better in the last tournament against the Joi. He’s another guy I feel high on, but the problem is, with so many great wrestlers facing each other, someone has to lose. Hopefully they all are healthy because it feels like the top is as talented as I can remember.

Takerufuji M6E

Our Yusho winner is actually in a great place this tournament. He’s still outside the Joi, and he looks more than strong enough to handle them much less the mid rankers he’ll face in the first week. That said, I’m sure part of it is me paying attention to it more because of Ozeki Analytics, but it does feel the Makuuchi is pretty strong relative to the past 5 years including the mid rankers.

Other Interesting Wrestlers

Oshoma M14W - Makuuchi Debut

Tokihayate M15E - Makuuchi Debut

I’m including them together because they’re both 27 and making their Makuuchi debuts. The parallels go deeper; they’re both college wrestlers who got started late. Tokihayate started in Jonokuchi and worked his way up generally winning a good amount more than he lost and has more experience. Oshoma started at Makush*ta and also has won more than he lost, but less so. They both look like they have enough talent to stick so let’s see if they can.

Comparing Banzuke Results

Top 15 in a row is nice. It looks like it did pretty well. I took the absolute value of the difference between my predicted rank using the linear regression that was detailed here and it was 40. It’s also anecdotal, but when I’ve ran these predictions out of sample, it has been pretty good at getting the promotions and demotions correct.

Let’s look at the overall figures and see how our algorithm did:

Again, I took the absolute difference between my projected rank and the actual rank. Total Ranks is how many ranks there are in a division. You can also substitute wrestler if you want. I scored it as if being off between East or West in Maegashira 8, for instance would equal 1 missed Rank, and predicted Maegashira 8 East and actual Maegashira 7 East would equal two missed ranks and so on. Average miss is just the Misses divided by Ranks in division. Perfect ranks are when I had a wrestler in their actual position.

I think I will enter Guess the Banzuke next time using this and see how it goes. Longer term, I hope to put together more infrastructure to sample different populations and modify the algorithm for predicting Banzuke ranks, and test how well that works. As of now, I can do all of that, and have the data, but it does take time to put it all together. Just getting into the behind the scenes a little. I also have an idea which might make a big difference but also might make no difference at all.

I think the Makuuchi results are pretty good. I nearly perfectly had the Makuuchi wrestlers and I’ve pointed out before, I was actually worried that the algo would be bad at promotions and demotions but not my experience so far which is nice. 25 out of 42 perfect ranks is essentially 60% which also feels high to me but I’ll take it. I think however you can see why I’ll probably focus my future research more on the lower divisions to see if I can get those looking better. Part of it is that there’s so much less between guys as there are only 7 matches and so many more ranks, making mistakes easy to compound. Perhaps it’s too hard but we’ll see and if I come up with anything good, I’ll be sure to update you all. Hopefully you enjoyed. Thanks for reading!