On Day 1, popular ozeki Harumafuji downed komusubi Toyonoshima in a match that had the audience at the Kokugikan clapping wildly and looking forward to a tournament in which the smallest man in the second rank would make a run for yokozuna grand champion status, following his championship win back in Nagoya in July. Toyonoshima, for his part, was on course for an awful first week, after the midway point posting a miserable 1-7 score before bouncing back to win the final seven days and walk away with an 8-7 winning record — the second time he has done so in Tokyo this year.

Come Day 4, however, following two losses to maegashira 1 men Okinoumi and Homasho, and then an incredible loss to the maegashira 3 ranked Takekaze who could only end the tournament with a 5-10 record, the yokozuna run was well and truly over.

Harumafuji went on to lose another four times, finished with a less than respectable (for an ozeki) 8-7, beat nobody ranked equal to or above him, and must now start from square one if he ever wants to attain the sport's top rank in the future. The wheels coming off his own quest, though, only served to focus attention elsewhere on the banzuke with Kotoshogiku and his fellow sekiwake Kisenosato the main beneficiaries.