Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast episode 575, The Kings of the Ring, Part 2.

How do you measure a career in Grand Sumo?

What are the metrics, the standards you look at when you say that someone was one of the best

ever to enter the dohyl?

Well, in sumo, as in basically every sport, there are a few different

ways by which one could measure the quality of a career, and by basically all of them,

Tyho was one of the best ever to do it. For a start, of course, there's the pure win-loss category,

or I should say win-loss draw, you can't draw in modern

sumo anymore, as all matches must end in a result one way or the other, but that wasn't

actually a rule until 1974 after Tyho retired from Sumo. Up until that point, there were a few

admittedly very rare circumstances where it was possible to tie a match.

For example, the Gilji, the presiding judge of the match, could declare a tie if a match went on so long that both wrestlers were too exhausted to continue.

Another potential tie scenario would be a match where a result was so close that it would normally result in a Torinaoshi, a rematch.

But one of the wrestlers was injured and unable to continue.

Today, that would actually just be a loss for the injured wrestler.

Anyway, by the numbers, here's how Taiho measures up.

Over the course of his career, Tyho would wrestle in 87 Honbush or major tournaments,

of which there were five during his first year as a pro in 1957,

and six every year after that.

In total, over his career, he took part in 1,190 bouts, and over the span of the whole thing, he won

872 of those matches, lost 182, and was Kujo, a term meaning too injured to compete, for

136.

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