tns8597
Jordan Jovtchev
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Post by tns8597 on Jan 13, 2021 8:55:24 GMT -5
I'm just opening this discussion as I think this phenomenon exclusive to Shingo from SASUKE 11 onwards and Iketani throughout his entire career have led to several questions regarding how they could consistently do worse on every subsequent attempt at Stage 3 without fail (it's almost impressive to a degree). It's just interesting as we've never really seen this happen to other competitors and certainly not recently, even Takeda who (like Shingo) has had a similar and arguably worse experience with shoulder injuries.
What do you guys think?
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Post by subtleagent on Jan 13, 2021 13:50:20 GMT -5
With Iketani I definitely think he clearly doesn't train for SASUKE and hell he even started a trend of declining on Stage 2 in 26 and 27 with him doing worse on the Double Salmon Ladder each time. Come SASUKE 28 onward he's only competed sporadically and never gotten past the third obstacle of Stage 1 since then.
As for Shingo, upper body was never really his strong suit and I think when Stage 3 got tougher and tougher he just couldn't really catch up. Even looking at him during USA vs. Japan (which doesn't really count as an improvement over SASUKE 23 since he failed Stage 1 and didn't attempt Stage 2) his form in Stage 3 was sloppy and he didn't last very long.
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Post by m4tt3r0x on Jan 13, 2021 14:11:57 GMT -5
I don't remember Iketani's track record on Sasuke, but the guy was always 70% legs and core and 30% everything else. With Shingo it is a curious case, but sadly I don't think anyone really knows how his shoulder history really was. It's almost miraculous how the injury hasn't resurfaced in a decade since Sasuke 23. I remember he said it doesn't bother him anymore.
When he failed the Curtain Cling it was a new obstacle, so not that mysterious. Before that he failed the Cliffhanger twice in 11 and 12 I believe, also understandable as it was no cakewalk at that time. After the Curtain Cling fails it was two Body Prop fails in 15 and 17, yeah? And he had already cleared it 3 times since Sasuke 11. Don't remember before and I can't be bothered to scour Sasukepedia anymore that I already have in the past. Anyway yeah it's weird he failed the Body Prop twice. For me that's really the only thing off about him. I don't know how his shoulder was at that time, I guess that's the million dollar question.
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tns8597
Jordan Jovtchev
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Post by tns8597 on Jan 13, 2021 14:30:34 GMT -5
Iketani only surprised me because you'd think given his gymnastics background that he'd be pretty strong upper-body wise so I was quite surprised to see him suck that badly on a Salmon Ladder, but yeah I think with him it comes down to him not training specific movements like the Cliffhanger and Body Prop which obvs accounted for the majority of his fails there. In his Sasuke 11 Stage 3 intro thumbnail it did show him 'training' by traversing a metal bar, but that's obviously nowhere near as arduous as on a one-inch ledge, and you could tell given that he didn't even make it halfway down the first ledge before failing that tournament. He defo invested more time into stuff like Monster Box and other Pro Sportsman events. The biggest surprise was Sasuke 16; even if he doesn't train for Sasuke specifically, that performance in itself was awful for a professional athlete.
As for Shingo, in 11 he failed the downward transition of the Cliffhanger Kai that he'd never come across before, but in 12 he slipped on the first transition, which I think was due to the fact that this time round he very nearly failed the Lamp Grasper which is also pretty taxing on the forearms and grip. Sasuke 14 as you mentioned was the Curtain Cling which he'd never come across before, but the Body Prop fails were what really confused me. The guy lived, trained, and breathed Sasuke at the time, had passed the obstacle like 5 times before, but couldn't seem to get past it in his last two attempts. He was barely 30 and was still really youthful as shown from his Stage 1 and 2 runs; I suppose it could be attributed to bad luck (like with Bunpei in 17), but both times round it did look like he was actively struggling on the obstacle, as though his strength and stamina was a fraction of what it was even only 5 years ago.
But I agree that upper body has never been Shingo's strong point; yes he's one of few to make the Final Stage twice but that was in a much much easier era. He's also quite big as Japanese competitors go (like 70kg or something); he never had the proportions of a competitor like Yusuke or Nagano who were tiny but just solid upper body muscle, which will always work against you no matter how much you train.
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Post by Ninja Relaxer on Jan 13, 2021 15:28:07 GMT -5
Generally, when a competitor starts a family (i.e. has children), they start to decline. That's because they have less time to train and because they're getting less sleep. Also, generally, their mind is on other things.
I think that was the case with Shingo and Iketani (and a lot of other competitors). There are exceptions to the rule, of course.
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Post by wrestlingfan55 on Jan 18, 2021 18:20:34 GMT -5
Shingo kept improving on Stage 3 up until Sasuke 7, where he got injured in the Final. He probably wasn't the same after that.
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Post by hoseasasuke on Jan 19, 2021 1:52:50 GMT -5
Iketani didn't take SASUKE too seriously. Shingo is due to his shoulder problems.
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Post by hoseasasuke on Jan 19, 2021 1:53:39 GMT -5
Generally, when a competitor starts a family (i.e. has children), they start to decline. That's because they have less time to train and because they're getting less sleep. Also, generally, their mind is on other things. I think that was the case with Shingo and Iketani (and a lot of other competitors). There are exceptions to the rule, of course. The biggest exception to this is I think Yuuji. Guy did insane in 36 and 37.
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tns8597
Jordan Jovtchev
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Post by tns8597 on Jan 19, 2021 4:11:00 GMT -5
The family thing also isn’t necessarily true; Shingo never had any kids, also as we’ve seen competitors like Hioki and Takeda actually improved as their family grew and provided them with individual support. It just depends on how their passion for Sasuke fits in with their family life; in the case of someone like Shunsuke Nagasaki, you could argue it doesn’t really at all.
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