Matching

Konnichiwa Konishiki, I have been a fan since 1991, seen a few tournaments live, but mainly on sumo digest. And read a few books. In fact, I have even wrestled against a real rikishi at a charity basho in Tsukuba. I went for his mawashi, as I had been told, but for some strange reason I did'nt win. My friends told me it looked funny. My question concerns the matching of rikishi against each other, something that always seems to be decided the day before the match. The matching of rikishi to an opponent seems to be quite square at the beggining of a tournament. Sekiwake and above gets opponents from upper makenouchi and komusubi, etc., in decided order. As the tournament proceeds, the selection of opponents seems to be less transparent. For example, for two rikishi having the same number of wins, one can sometimes get an "easy" opponent while the other gets a tougher match. (In my opinion) So my question is: Is there any easy-to-grasp rule how the rikishi are matched against each other?

Good luck and push them out!

Mats

• The Matchimg by The Oyakata's , 2/26/97