Just this morning the term hospital pass came up in a conversation, a reference to the football pass that subjects the recipient to heavy contact and consequently a ticket to the hospital (the context was what Theresa May received from David Cameron, but that’s another topic…).

Different sport, but the metaphor feels apt in the case of yesterday’s announcement in the world of sumo: Yokozuna Kisenosato retired immediately. Kisenosato bowed out of the sport after stringing together a winless record over the first three days of the January hatsu basho tournament in Tokyo.

As the first Japanese wrestler to attain sumo’s highest rank in nearly 20 years, Kisenosato faced arguably the loftiest of expectations by the general public and the sumo establishment alike.

The last Japanese native to reach the top rank of yokozuna, or grand champion, was Wakanohana, way back in 1998. Wakanohana’s brother, Takanohana, the previously promoted Japanese yokozuna in 1994, went on to become a sumo elder and take over his father’s training stable. It was from within this training stable that led to the Takanoiwa affair, in which Takanohana maneuvered to disgrace another popular yokozuna, Harumafuji, into retirement in 2017.

The forced retirement of Harumafuji, who had served as the primary counterweight to still-active yokozuna Hakuho (arguably the most dominant yokozuna of all time), ratcheted up the pressure on Kisenosato to perform.

Inadvertently, the Waka-Taka brothers have given Kisenosato the most notorious hospital pass in the history of sumo.