Amateur Sumo – the sport as it should be
Mark Buckton
Sakai World Sumo Champs – not all about winning

Las Vegas Koen
Joe Kuroda
Our man reports from the fight capital of the world

Rikishi of Old
Joe Kuroda
A look at a rikishi of yesterday with Kotozakura – our man for October

Heya Peek
John Gunning
John’s early morning dash to Azumazeki-beya & report on TKOTU

SFM Interview
Katrina Watts sits down with SFM’s Mark Buckton to discuss amateur sumo

Photo Bonanza
SFM’s best yet – Aki Basho/ Las Vegas / Amateur World Champs / Azumazeki-beya visit – seen nowhere else

Aki Basho Review
Lon Howard
Lon gives us his Aki Basho summary, along with the henka sightings results, and his take on the tournament while ‘gem’ of the basho takes a break

Lower Division Rikishi
Mikko Mattila
Mikko Mattila returns to cover lower division ups and downs

Kyushu Basho Forecast
Pierre Wohlleben & Mark Buckton
Pierre predicts the Kyushu Basho banzuke while Mark previews the ones to watch next time out

Sumo 101
Barbara Ann Klein
Discovers and explains amasumo & ozumo variations

Kimarite Focus
Mikko Mattila
Mikko once again walks us through his chosen kimarite

Minusha
John McTague
John’s unique bimonthly view of news from outside the dohyo

Online Gaming
Zenjimoto of ‘game fame’ covers some of the very best sumo games around – his own!

Kokugi Connections
Todd Lambert
Todd’s focus on 3 of the most interesting online sumo sites today

Fan Debate
Is the limit on foreign rikishi fair? See what our debaters had to say

SFM Cartoons
Benny Loh
In the first of our cartoon bonanzas, sit back and chuckle at Benny Loh’s offerings

Let’s Hear From You
What was it that made you a sumo fan? Gernobono tells all

Readers’ Letters
See what SFM readers had to say since our last issue

Sumo Quiz
The Quizmaster
Answer the Qs and win yourself next basho’s banzuke.

  before turning the tables and taking another great win. Satoyama has been a bit in the shadows of Baruto and Shiraishi, but this small guy has prospects to continue the success also in juryo. His play-off against his stablemate Baruto in Nagoya basho 2004 already gave signs of what kind of a rikishi Satoyama is. Maybe the following characterization is a bit too overwhelmingly positive for him as he is still a makushita, but in his arm-fencing defense and footwork, he has features from both Tochiazuma and Hakuho and regarding those attributes, such a combination is pretty much as good as it gets. There is also some resemblance to Ama’s perseverance in his sumo. Ama’s sumo was often admired and regarded as extraordinary by many oyakata when Ama was in lower ranks. It would be fascinating to hear what the various oyakata see in Satoyama’s sumo now. Sure, Satoyama is small and will undoubtedly have a problem to solve with sekitori level power, but for now it is impossible to evaluate how well his sumo works against strong juryo opponents. He sure has had a lot of experience in strong sekitori level rikishi since he trains with Baruto and Shiraishi.
Futeno’s tsukebito Dewaotori (19 years old, 3-4 at Ms10) has a lot of power but needs to sharpen up his sumo and tachi-ai in order to avoid getting into hopelessly inferior positions where even his power doesn’t help any more. His sumo was rather slow and sloppy in Aki basho. He doesn’t yet perform nearly as well as he could. 39-year old Kotokanyu, who started his career in Ozumo in 1981 (three years before Kotonowaka), had a streak of narrow 3-4 makekoshi in last
tournaments, but showed once again that he is not going anywhere yet with his 6-1 at Ms27 which takes him back to high makushita for Kyushu in November. Czech Takanoyama carried on his kachikoshi streak in makushita with a 4-3 at Ms17 vanquishing his foes with his usual technical sumo and is already the highest ranked non-sekitori in the big Naruto-stable. Mongolian 21-year old Koryu also finished

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