Do not compress absence into one field. Keep tournament ranking, scheduled bout, ordinary win or loss, fusen win, fusen loss, rest/no-bout mark and full-tournament absence as separate events. Then decide whether the question asks for missed days, tournaments containing an absence, or tournaments missed completely.
The Japan Sumo Association scorecard distinguishes ordinary results, defaults and days marked as rest or no bout. Combining them erases who forfeited, who received a default win and whether a lower-division wrestler simply had no scheduled match that day.
Build one row per wrestler-day
Store wrestler, tournament, day, rank, opponent, official symbol, interpreted result, source URL and retrieval timestamp. Sekitori usually have a fifteen-day scorecard, but lower-division wrestlers are not scheduled every day. A day without a bout cannot automatically become an absence.
For an “absent day” metric, publish the exact trigger: for example, a day officially recorded as a fusen loss or rest after the wrestler had entered the tournament. For an “affected tournament” metric, distinguish any tournament containing an absence from a complete absence. Separate late entry, mid-tournament withdrawal and return after withdrawal so another researcher can reproduce the total.
Do not invent a diagnosis
If the official absence information does not state a reason, do not fill the blank with a medical explanation based on motion, photographs or unsourced discussion. The measurement describes participation, not health. When the Association corrects or extends a record, preserve the former value, retrieval time and change note rather than silently replacing history.
Win-rate studies need two possible denominators. One can follow official wins and losses including fusen decisions. Another can include only bouts that took place on the dohyo. Neither is universally superior; they answer different questions and should never be mixed midway through a chart.
For cross-era work, first test whether the same daily fields exist throughout the chosen period. A modern symbol should not be projected backwards into an archive that records absences differently.
What this table cannot establish
The reproducible result is limited to participation and absence states recorded by the official sources. A group with more recorded absences does not, by itself, identify body size, training, injury or an era as the cause. Selecting only cases with a published reason would create a different population chosen by disclosure, not a complete study of causes.
Publish division, interval, ranked population, missing records and every exclusion beside the result. If a count using all official decisions and a count using only bouts contested on the dohyo point in different directions, do not collapse them into one “absence rate.” Keep historical periods with coarser fields separate. The next official correction should produce a versioned old value, new value and reason—not a silent replacement.
Watch the return without writing its story
An absence table tempts readers to explain the empty space. Resist that. When the wrestler next appears, notice the first two steps after the tachiai and keep your observation separate from the official record. Careful counting is not cold; it protects a wrestler from being reduced to an injury narrative that the source never established.
Sources
- Japan Sumo Association, scorecard, absence information, and daily bouts/results (checked 3 September 2026; retain revision history when official records change).
Source links used for verification
Each link was used for the corresponding claim in this article; inclusion is not a blanket endorsement of the whole page.
Article verified:
- Japan Sumo Association tournament scorecardPrimary source (as checked for this article)
- Japan Sumo Association absence informationPrimary source (as checked for this article)
- Japan Sumo Association daily bouts and resultsPrimary source (as checked for this article)