Most unexpected decline

[dakohosu]

Many competitors have declined after strong performances on the show, but who’s decline do you think was the most unexpected/you felt they had more left to offer but then they just tanked?

For me it would be Kanno. Guy goes from 4 straight Stage 3 appearances, the last of which was a near Final Stage attempt, to failing Stage 1 six consecutive times. I also felt as though the first of these fails was a fluke as the Tackle had been made heavier and he also dislocated his shoulder so even then I wasn’t expecting five further straight fails. Not to mention that all of these attempts have comprised of him moving as though his legs are made of glass, like how he almost failed the Quad Steps in 37.

Shunsuke also springs to mind as well, given how he was known for his cross-era consistency. Even when he hadn’t competed or practiced for six years he almost immediately made it back to Stage 3, so the prospect of him failing Stage 1 four straight times and all pretty dumb fails at that was almost unimaginable.

[brz0ny]

Kanno is expected because of all those big injuries he suffers, especially considering he got the biggest one from being injured in the show.

You could say Yamada, going from coming very close to Final Stage in 10 to not being anywhere near making Third since very next tournament (and that fiasco in 12). I highly doubt anyone would think he wouldnt make Second Stage since (though his run was impressive in renewal tournament).

Another one who comes to mind is Naoya. Its likely his 24 fail haunted him ever since but people expected him to brush it off as a silly mistake, something which does happen quite a lot in the show.

There is probably a lot more examples, but I will give another easy one which is Omori. You could say he couldnt deal with course becoming harder after a renewal but in 4 he failed identical stage 1 to previous competition.

[dakohosu]

Jul 2, 2022 11:56:40 GMT -5 brz0ny said:

Kanno is expected because of all those big injuries he suffers, especially considering he got the biggest one from being injured in the show.

You could say Yamada, going from coming very close to Final Stage in 10 to not being anywhere near making Third since very next tournament (and that fiasco in 12). I highly doubt anyone would think he wouldnt make Second Stage since (though his run was impressive in renewal tournament).

Another one who comes to mind is Naoya. Its likely his 24 fail haunted him ever since but people expected him to brush it off as a silly mistake, something which does happen quite a lot in the show.

There is probably a lot more examples, but I will give another easy one which is Omori. You could say he couldnt deal with course becoming harder after a renewal but in 4 he failed identical stage 1 to previous competition.

I dunno man, Kanno’s always had a dodgy shoulder, I mean it dislocated in 27 and then in his next four competitions he made Stage 3. I think the increase in frequency of his shoulder injury was part of the surprise along with his decline tbh. I always assumed it was like Shingo where it would go once every 4-5 years, but then after 33 he ended up spending half his time in surgery, which obviously consolidated the decline but I wouldn’t have expected this given that he was still in his early 30s which isn’t an age known for chronic injuries developing, that’s more like late 40s-50s.

Yeah Yamada is a good one. Went from 10/12 Stage 1 clears to never clearing Stage 1 again, and even during his hiatus he competed in 13’s trials and cleared the course. I always wonder what caused his infamous ongoing Stage 1 drought to begin with.

Omori statistically has the steepest decline going from three Final Stage attempts to four straight Stage 1 failures, but it’s not that surprising given the massive bump in difficulty on Stage 1. His fail in 4 could’ve arguably been a fluke but his subsequent fails weren’t imo. It was similar to Shingo’s five fails in Shin-Sasuke. It wasn’t that surprising given the increase in difficulty.

[YourResidentKojiFan]

I'm not sure if this really counts as a decline per se, it's more of a skid, but Kongu from 19-22. I mean, dude rolled up and made the Cliffhanger in all 3 of his first 3 shown appearances, then just completely tanked for 2 years.

[dakohosu]

Jul 2, 2022 13:30:20 GMT -5 YourResidentKojiFan said:

I'm not sure if this really counts as a decline per se, it's more of a skid, but Kongu from 19-22. I mean, dude rolled up and made the Cliffhanger in all 3 of his first 3 shown appearances, then just completely tanked for 2 years.

His comeback was legendary though. Four straight Stage 1 failures followed by his best ever run in 23, that he bested again in 24 by making the Final Stage.

[subtleagent]

I nearly left him out because his entire SASUKE career is full of puzzlingly regressive results, but Naoki Iketani in the RISING era comes to mind. Given how athletically capable he still is even in his 40s you'd think SASUKE modern day wouldn't beat him back as hard as it does, but wow his results from 28 onward have been laughably bad. At least in Shin-SASUKE he still had some decent Stage 1 runs even if they didn't end in clears, but when you're doing worse than guys like Yamada, Torisawa, or even Honma Takashi on a consistent basis despite having a notably athletic background, that's nothing short of embarrassing. I know Iketani has barely ever trained for SASUKE if at all, but you'd think he wouldn't be easy prey like this.

[azn]

Jul 2, 2022 19:28:06 GMT -5 subtleagent said:

I nearly left him out because his entire SASUKE career is full of puzzlingly regressive results, but Naoki Iketani in the RISING era comes to mind. Given how athletically capable he still is even in his 40s you'd think SASUKE modern day wouldn't beat him back as hard as it does, but wow his results from 28 onward have been laughably bad. At least in Shin-SASUKE he still had some decent Stage 1 runs even if they didn't end in clears, but when you're doing worse than guys like Yamada, Torisawa, or even Honma Takashi on a consistent basis despite having a nota bly athletic background, that's nothing short of embarrassing. I know Iketani has barely ever trained for SASUKE if at all, but you'd think he wouldn't be easy prey like this.

Nah, for me at least it isn't as embarassing.

The reason as to why he isn't doing well right now is his aforementioned lack of SASUKE training but in all honesty, training or not I don't really have the highest expectations of him anyways given he is well past his hay day in terms of his SASUKE career. I just see him now as someone who's probably doing SASUKE for fun now instead of taking it seriously, there's nothing embarassing about that in my eyes.

Also, he only competed thrice in the RISING/Reiwa era, so you can tell he lost some sort of motivation to continue given that even during Shin, he was a common sight. I'm sure if he was somewhat motivated and trained for the course a bit and familarized himself with some of the newer obstacles, he would've definitley had some nice runs on the first stage

[katoshiho]

Also, Kawaguchi Tomohiro is start to decline from SASUKE 37. Although he is constant from SASUKE 30, he start to failed at Soritatsu Kabe for three straight times. We know that 37 and 39 probably because the bad weather, but why can't he make it on 38 is weird.

[m4tt3r0x]

I think you could honestly argue Nagano had a pretty rapid and unexpected decline after 23. Yeah he made it to Stage 3 in 27, but other than that he really just never fully recovered from his string of fails between 24-26. Failing the Warped Wall in 28 at 40 years old after just making it to Stage 3 a year and a half ago and on quite arguably an easier Stage 1 was pretty shocking.

I know the word on the street was that his heart wasn't in it anymore around 24 onwards, but the guy was only 37. Compare that to the older athletes today who have excelled in their forties (Hioki, Yuuji, Suzuki Yusuke, and even Okuyama from a decade ago) and in retrospect I think you can say Nagano declined fairly quickly.

I'd also say Takeda after 24 just became Salmon Ladder fodder fairly surprisingly.

[dakohosu]

Jul 3, 2022 10:01:41 GMT -5 m4tt3r0x said:

I think you could honestly argue Nagano had a pretty rapid and unexpected decline after 23. Yeah he made it to Stage 3 in 27, but other than that he really just never fully recovered from his string of fails between 24-26. Failing the Warped Wall in 28 at 40 years old after just making it to Stage 3 a year and a half ago and on quite arguably an easier Stage 1 was pretty shocking.

I know the word on the street was that his heart wasn't in it anymore around 24 onwards, but the guy was only 37. Compare that to the older athletes today who have excelled in their forties (Hioki, Yuuji, Suzuki Yusuke, and even Okuyama from a decade ago) and in retrospect I think you can say Nagano declined fairly quickly.

I'd also say Takeda after 24 just became Salmon Ladder fodder fairly surprisingly.

Yeah this actually hits pretty close to home as I just got into Sasuke after 25, when Nagano had only failed Stage 1 twice in a row (granted for the first time since his debut but still), and one of those was a freak accident and both followed a near second Kanzen, so I didn't really think too much of it. I never expected him to enter a pretty unrecoverable decline, with his Sasuke 27 performance arguably only facilitated by the fact that Stage 1 had been massively nerfed and there were 26 other clears. His fails in the RISING era were honestly quite depressing because of how much he was kicking butt only 3-4 years prior; he basically just gave up in 28, and in 30 he just looked relieved to clear Stage 1 compared to in 12-13 where he didn't even react to clearing Stage 3.

Takeda's return from hiatus was also really disappointing; he literally went from being the most consistent competitor to several early Stage 1 fails, I just couldn't believe that he had become such a shadow of his former self in less than 3 years despite the fact that he was still a firefighter during his hiatus.

[subtleagent]

Personally, I just think Nagano got super unlucky from 24 ~ 26. 24 was a careless slip up due to rushing and 25 and 26 were on modifications of obstacles that not many people were prepared to see again. I think his 28 fail was more due to not training very much as many competitors believed SASUKE was over and Nagano was also dealing with the stigma of his friends failing and being forced to retire so I don't think he felt the need to try as hard given that he was just mentally not in it.

That all said, I do agree that age did play a part in it. He was in his 40s and by that point already had five finals and not much more to prove, therefore he started training less and less and then just all that put together really played a part in his decline. The course was getting harder and he wasn't getting any younger.