As someone who was never graceful as a younger man, I marvel that these guys can combine strength, agility, ballet like grace and giant mountains of body fat like that.
Much to my surprise, Mitakeumi is in the pole position now, and with a few hours to go before nakabi, I have to wonder what the conditons might be for him to earn an Ozeki promotion coming out of Hatsu. A yusho? A zensho? I personally think they will make him wait until after Osaka, to see if he can string together 2 good tournaments, but maybe with just 2 Ozeki today, they will be happy to create a 3rd.
I saw no evidence of Terunofuji favoring his left leg today, so maybe my fears that he might go kyujo soon are unfounded.
This robbed him of any real leverage or anything more than a defensive block. Kotoeko was a bit over enthusiastic and went deep, and then found he could not really raise Nishikigi. Kotoeko improves to Aoiyama defeats Kaisei β In this battle of the mega-fauna, Aoiyama was able to immediately get to the side of Kaisei, and simply drive him out. Kotonowaka defeats Oho β Oho leaned in a bit to far in his contest of forward pressure, and was an easy mark for a step to the side and a hand on the shoulder pulling down.
I am starting to worry Oho may not be able to hold rank in the top division yet. Kotonowaka ends the day at Wakamotoharu defeats Yutakayama β One Wakamotoharu got that right hand outside, Yutakayama was in trouble. He reacted to try and break the grip, but that seemed to help Wakamotoharu consolidate his left hand inside, and set up a text book yorikiri.
