Emperor's Cup All-Japan Championships

[CA_Wrestler]

26 minutes ago, Mike Parrish said:

I missed yesterday's sessions and then scrolled through the videos looking for interesting matches.

I won't miss today's.

What's your prediction for 53s?

 

I'm going with Mayu Shidochi.

I really do think Shidochi has the edge right now only because of her competing more recently at a higher level.  I think it might also depend which side of the bracket all 3 of them are in because 2 of them will on one side FOR SURE.  I'm guessing Okuno will be on the same side as Fujinami due to the fact that Shidochi just won in Belgrade, Okuno won U23 and Fujinami hasn't competed since the Asian championships in April.

[Mike Parrish]

32 minutes ago, CA_Wrestler said:

I really do think Shidochi has the edge right now only because of her competing more recently at a higher level.  I think it might also depend which side of the bracket all 3 of them are in because 2 of them will on one side FOR SURE.  I'm guessing Okuno will be on the same side as Fujinami due to the fact that Shidochi just won in Belgrade, Okuno won U23 and Fujinami hasn't competed since the Asian championships in April.

Shidochi's match against Winchester was eye opening.

[CA_Wrestler]

Ok.....Fujinami is the #1 seed.  I get it just because she won the Meiji Cup at that weight, but I thought they would have put Shidochi at #1.  Anyways, Shidochi and Okuno are on the bottom half and they'll most likely meet in the semis.

[Mike Parrish]

15 minutes ago, CA_Wrestler said:

Ok.....Fujinami is the #1 seed.  I get it just because she won the Meiji Cup at that weight, but I thought they would have put Shidochi at #1.  Anyways, Shidochi and Okuno are on the bottom half and they'll most likely meet in the semis.

Where are the brackets?

[Mike Parrish]

53s

 

WW53_1-1.pdf

[CA_Wrestler]

When all of the best wrestlers go to Olympic weights, fun things are going to happen:

50kg- Susaki dominates Yoshimoto in the finals.  Yoshimoto is clearly the 2nd best 50kg in the world, but Susaki is just on a different level.  Umi Ito easily techs Irie in one of the bronze matches.  Irie should have just competed at 53kg and saved herself from cutting weight.  In the other bronze match, Sakurai techs the high schooler, Morikawa.

53kg- Okuno wrestles great and beats Shidochi in the semis to face Fujinami in the finals.  That's the first time she's officially beat her former college teammate.  Their all-time record against each other is Shidochi 8 to Okuno 1.  Fujinami teched her opponent to make it to the finals.  If Okuno can wrestle at the same level as her semis match, the finals against Fujinami is going to be very interesting.  The last time they met in the Meiji Cup finals back in June, it was really close and Fujinami won 4-0.  

57kg- Nanjo pins Natami to win in the finals.  Next year's Meiji Cup will be interesting with Risako dropping back down to this weight and Sakurai coming back again.  Nanjo, Natami and Risako were all in the same college/club and practicing against each other for a long time.

62kg- Ozaki easily techs everybody to make it to the finals.  In a big shocker, Motoki(2022 59kg senior bronze) beats Olympic champ Kawai 9-2 in the semis to set up a finals match against Ozaki.

[CA_Wrestler]

Forgot to mention this since it's the women's section, but Otoguro teched his way to the 65kg finals.  He hasn't competed since the Olympics.  As I've mentioned plenty of times, he and his brother(also a wrestler) are in the military and that could be why he hasn't competed in a while.

Taishi Narikuni, who teched Zain in the 70kg world finals this year was slated to compete in Greco at 67kg as well as FS at 70kg, did not compete.  I'm wondering if he got sick, injured or just messed up his body too much trying to cut to 67.

[Mike Parrish]

https://youtu.be/U6BHXBHRnpk

53kg finals

Start time = -3:14:00

[CA_Wrestler]

The biggest shocker of the tournament, Motoki gets the winning td with 22 sec left on Ozaki.  Ozaki almost scored multiple times after that in the last 10 seconds, but Motoki's defense was very good.  Motoki wrestled the best tournament of her life.  Great match.

[CA_Wrestler]

Meiji Cup is going to be insane next year. 

Shidochi and Okuno have to win the tournament to force a playoff match against Fujinami and I'm sure Fujinami will also enter that tournament to try and win the spot outright.  Same goes for the other world number 1s at Olympic weights-Ozaki and Tsugumi Sakurai.