Nagoya 2025 Power Rankings
Here's the regular power rankings before the July tournament, with a completely unsurprising name at the top.
Join us at Fantasizr for the Nagoya basho. Sumo starts in two days!
Since the basho is close to starting, it’s time for Power Rankings! These are based on a simple formula, which is made to keep things consistent while looking over every Makuuchi rikishi’s last year. These should not be seen as predictive, and getting obsessed about minor ranking separation between similarly placed sumotori.
Still, this formula has no doubt who the best rikishi going right now is, much like anyone paying any attention to sumo. Before you see the full list, here’s a reminder on how the formula works:
Take the Fantasy Basho score for each Makuuchi basho across the last year.
Add 10 points for a Yusho and 5 points for a Jun-Yusho.
Multiple any Juryo win totals by 1.5
Take any Makushita win totals as they are.
Multiple the most recent basho by six, the next most recent by five, and so on over the last year. Add those totals up, then add a Bonus which is the same as the current game’s budget number.
And now, the Power Rankings for Nagoya.
Hey, look! The Yokozuna lead the pack! What a sumo world to be living in. Onosato and Hoshoryu are the best rikishi in sumo, plus they hold the top rank. The Power Rankings only know how they’ve performed recently, and doesn’t even know that they are 25 and 26 respectively with few injury issues overall. Since both are recent Yokozuna, their promotion performances are also shown here. Your two best sumotori right now are the Yokozuna. Enjoy it.
Still, Onosato is WAY ahead of Hoshoryu by these metrics. His last year included three Yusho, culminating in back-to-back Emperor’s Cup in March and May. He’s been blowing the competition away. Since the Power Rankings don’t know about head-to-head records, this doesn’t factor in Hoshoryu’s career matchup advantage. Use that as a reminder that although Hoshoryu won their last competitive match, it had no bearing on the Yusho race because Onosato had already confirmed he would be champion.
Behind Hoshoryu is a long gap to Wakatakakage in third, with Kirishima following a little behind. Daieisho, Kotozakura, and Aonishiki are the next three. If anyone could seriously challenge the Yokozuna this basho, that quintet contains the most likely challenger. (Except probably Daieisho, who apparently starts the basho injured…)
As usual, rikishi with non-Sekitori basho's are a little challenging to the Power Rankings formula. For this basho, we have four to deal with: Aonishiki, Fujinokawa, Kusano, and Kotoeiho. Take this as further proof of Aonishiki’s remarkability. Aonishiki was in Makushita in September. He is now on the edge of Sanyaku. If you shortened the Power Rankings to the last three basho, he’d be fourth in a virtual tie with Wakatakakage. He’s also just 21 and been in sumo less than two years.
The other three with Makushita basho are more typical. In fact, each are making their top-division debuts. The Power Rankings are built to say that 9 wins in Juryo is like 6 wins in Makuuchi AND that Makushita is too far away. Fujinokawa, Kusano, and Kotoeiho all kind of challenge the usual assumptions here. Each had double-digit wins in Juryo in May, but also were in Makushita fairly recently. Kusano especially is a challenge. He has had two career Juryo basho after managing to climb out of Makushita. In both, he won the yusho going away. These Power Rankings are probably underselling him, but also are just not built to handle completely unusual situations.