Category Archives: sumo

On Pearl Harbor Day, it seems appropriate to commemorate a Hawaiian who rose to the top of the sumo ranks in Japan.

In 1988, Chad Rowan was an easygoing, eighteen-year-old part-Hawaiian living in rural Waimänalo, on the island of O’ahu. At six-feet-eight, he’d played basketball in high school but was not inclined toward sports involving more aggressive physical contact. His mother later recalled that, when he first went to Japan to try his luck at sumo, “I didn’t think he’d last, because to me, I didn’t know if he was tough enough.” In addition to being disadvantaged by his gentle nature, his body type was also wrong for sumo. “In a sport where a lower center of gravity and well-developed lower body is prized,” said sports writer Ferd Lewis, “Rowan was a six-foot-eight giraffe among five-foot-eleven rhinos.”

Like most American kids, Rowan grew up knowing almost nothing about the national sport of Japan. But after being asked twice, he reluctantly allowed himself to be recruited to a sumo beya in Tokyo owned and led by a retired wrestler with the honorific name Azumazeki Oyakata. During a stellar professional career lasting from 1964 to 1984, Azumazeki Oyakata had competed under the name Takamiyama. He was born on Maui as Jesse Kuhaulua, was also of Hawaiian ancestry, and was the first foreign-born wrestler to win a major sumo tournament. By the time Rowan entered Kuhaulua’s sumo beya, another recruit from Hawai’i, Saleva’a Atisanoe was wrestling in the upper, salaried ranks under the name Konishiki. In addition, two lower-ranked wrestlers from Hawai’i, John Feleunga and Taylor Wylie, were training in the sumo beya that had recruited Chad.

Rowan’s introduction to the strict, hierarchical world of sumo was not auspicious, as this excerpt from Gaijin Yokozuna, Mark Panek’s biography, makes vivid. Kuhaulua worried that he’d made a mistake by recuiting Rowan. “I remember the first time he put on a belt and wrestled. He didn’t look very good,” Kuhaulua said. “Smaller people–­a lot smaller people–­were just throwing him around in practice.” From this shaky beginning, Rowan transformed both his body and his character, using great mental discipline and an unparalleled work ethic. He rose through the ranks at a phenomenal pace. Within three years, he was in the elite, salaried ranks himself. Two years later, wrestling under the name Akebono (“dawn” in Japanese), Rowan had reached the rank of yokozuna: the pinnacle of sumo. Rowan was the first foreign-born wrestler ever to attain this rank and was only the sixty-fourth yokozuna [a very new rank!] in the history of the ancient, tradition-bound sport, the written records for which date back to eighth-century Japan. In 2001, Rowan retired from sumo at the age of thirty-two.

SOURCE: Jungle Planet and Other New Stories, Manoa 16, no. 2 (2004) (Project Muse subscription required)

Gaijin Yokozuna sounds like a must-buy for me.

When radio broadcasting began in 1925, stations expressed an immediate interest in broadcasting sumo. The leaders of the Sumo Association, however, were leery of the new medium. Like the officials of other sport bodies around the world, they were fearful of economic catastrophe. Why should fans pay good money to crowd into the Kokugikan if they are able to sit comfortably at home and listen to the radio? Broadcasters persisted and the Sumo Association reluctantly agreed to allow radio coverage on a trial basis for the January tournament of 1928. Contrary to the association’s fears, radio seemed to increase rather than decrease the desire to be present at the bouts. The stadium was packed, and radio broadcasts became a regular and popular feature.

To accommodate the new medium, however, there had to be adjustments in the traditional way that the matches were held. Before each match, the two wrestlers perform shikiri [‘face-offs’], the long ritual preparation for what often prove to be very short bouts. During shikiri, they crouch in the center of the ring, glare at one another, stand, return to their corners for another handful of salt to throw upon the ground, move back to the center of the ring, and crouch again for more baleful glaring. Traditionally, shikiri continued indefinitely, until both men were ready to charge and grapple. Radio broadcasts, however, have an allotted time frame. To ensure that the day’s matches finished before the end of the broadcast, wrestlers were told to limit shikiri to ten minutes, which–with a glare at the broadcaster–they did.

In fact, it took some time for the wrestlers to become accustomed to the idea of a curtailed warm-up ritual. On the first day, anxious not to exceed the ten-minute limit, most wrestlers cut short their shikiri and started their matches so quickly that the entire program moved at a furious pace. The radio broadcast, scheduled to carry only the last and most important matches, was supposed to begin at 5:20 P.M., but the horrified promoters realized that the last wrestlers were liable to have finished their match before the broadcast even began. Although five long intermissions were hurriedly introduced, the first day of broadcasts consisted of only the last match, which ended at 5:40. On the second day of the tournament, the broadcast was started earlier. This did not solve the problem. The wrestlers soon reverted to their old ways and indulged themselves in extended shikiri. By the time the top-ranked wrestlers had stepped into the ring, the station had already moved on to its next scheduled broadcast. It was some time before the wrestlers and the broadcasters were, metaphorically, on the same wavelength.

Although one might have expected that the arrival of television in the 1950s made it possible to return to longer shikiri, which are certainly more interesting to watch than to hear about, this was not the case. The time limit for the upper division has been reduced to four minutes, and the Sumo Association smoothly manages the progression of matches so that they usually end a few minutes before the 6:00 P.M. conclusion of the day’s broadcast. From the fan’s point ofview, however, managerial efficiency has its drawbacks. Before the time limit was imposed, each shikiri was potentially the start of the match, and tension built as one shikiri followed another. In our more programmed age, the ritual has become routine, the match begins when it is supposed to, and the shikiri tends to be, for the wrestlers and spectators alike, mere posturing.

SOURCE: Japanese Sports: A History, by Allen Guttmann and Lee Thompson (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2001), pp. 114-115

My interest in sumo began in Kyoto when I would come home from school and watch the final bouts of the day on black-and-white TV before supper. Like clockwork.

After 5 days of the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament, veteran ozeki Musoyama (Hawai‘i yokozuna Musashimaru’s old stablemate) has decided to retire after losing 3 in a row, while fellow ozeki and Fukuoka hometown favorite Kaio (4-1) has recovered nicely after losing his first bout. But the only rikishi with perfect records are: the Mongolian yokozuna Asashoryu, and Japanese veteran Kotonowaka.

More at That’s News to Me.

UPDATE, Day 10: Asashoryu remains 10-0, but Kotonowaka has faded to 6-4. Sekiwake Wakanosato and Mongolian maegashira #1 Hakuho are both at 9-1, while ozeki Kaio and the Russian and Bulgarian rookies Roho and Kotooshu are at 8-2.

UPDATE, Day 11: The very next day after toppling Kaio, Hakuho upset the superman himself, Asashoryu. Fans hurled their zabutons toward the ring in celebration. (No drink cups. Sumo wrestlers often topple into the front rows, but never attack their audience.) Now three rikishi are tied at 10-1–Asashoryu, Wakanosato, and Hakuho–with Kaio only one win behind at 9-2.

On the occasion of the opening of the November Grand Sumo Tournament, here’s an account of the origin of the highest rank, yokozuna, usually translated ‘grand champion’ to distinguish it from the former highest rank, ozeki ‘champion’.

The conventional genealogy of yokozuna begins with Akashi Shiganosuke in the early seventeenth century, but there is no record that such a wrestler ever existed, much less that he was made a yokozuna. Instead, the institution of the yokozuna has its origins in the licenses Yoshida Zenzaemon granted to two wrestlers–Tanikaze Kajinosuke and Onokawa Kisaburo. In November 1789 he authorized each of them to perform a solo ring-entering ceremony while wearing a white rope (the yokozuna) around their waists. This innovation was part. of the efforts by Yoshida and the other leaders of professional sumo in Edo to increase the status of the sport, efforts that culminated with the 1791 sumo performance before Shogun Tokugawa Ienari. [Sumo was previously considered too low-brow for noble tastes.]

Yoshida’s innovation was not immediately adopted as standard practice. In fact, for nearly forty years, no further licenses to perform the solo ring-entering ceremony while wearing the decorative rope were granted. The license was revived in 1828, but by the end of the Tokugawa shogunate only nine such licenses had been awarded. The institutionalization of the practice in the early twentieth century involved a series of innovations beginning in the late nineteenth century and culminating in the official recognition of the yokozuna as the highest rank in sumo.

For a century after Yoshida’s grant to Tanikaze and Onokawa, the highest sumo rank continued to be ozeki [‘champion’]. During this time, the word “yokozuna ” still referred merely to the rope worn by the wrestler licensed to perform a solo ring-entering ceremony. In fact, Tanikaze did not even hold the highest rank of Ozeki in the tournament after which he was awarded the yokozuna license; he was at the second-highest rank of sekiwake. Shiranui Dakuemon, awarded the license in 1840, was subsequently demoted to sekiwake for a tournament.

It was not until May 1890 that the word “yokozuna” appeared in the banzuke (the table of rankings printed before each tournament). Ironically, the motive for printing the term was to placate rather than to reward, and the consequences were entirely unintended. For the first time there were more than two ozeki listed on the banzuke. Two new ozeki had just been promoted, but the two reigning ozeki were left in place. This unprecedented situation was dealt with by writing the two extra names on tabs protruding from the top sides of the printed banzuke. The ozeki with the weakest record in the previous tournament, Nishinoumi, was one of those listed on the tabs. Since he had just been awarded a yokozuna license, he felt slighted and complained to the Sumo Association that a wrestler as honored as he deserved better treatment. To pacify him, the association put the characters for yokozuna next to his name. Once the precedent was established, it became the custom to write these characters alongside the names of ozeki with the license, but there was still no official yokozuna rank.

Shortly after the term “yokozuna” entered the banzuke rankings, a private campaign was started to distinguish ozeki with the yokozuna license from those without it. Jimmaku Kyiigoro had received a license, the ninth issued, in 1867. In 1895, he started a campaign to erect a monument to wrestlers who had been honored with the license. The monument was erected in 1900 without the involvement of the Sumo Association or the Yoshida family (which still claimed sole authority to issue the yokozuna license).

The Sumo Association finally recognized yokozuna as an official rank in 1909, the pivotal year in which the Kokugikan was opened, the referee’s costume was redesigned, and the newspaper Jiji shinpo started regularly designating tournament champions. The Yoshida house, however, which continued to award the yokozuna license, refused to accept the association’s interpretation of the yokozuna as a rank. It was not until 1951 that the Yoshida family finally agreed that the yokozuna was indeed a rank. In short, the lofty status that is now widely perceived as the very symbol of sumo’s “two-thousand-year history” emerged only in the nineteenth century and was finally accepted as an official rank around fifty years ago.

SOURCE: Japanese Sports: A History, by Allen Guttmann and Lee Thompson (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2001), pp. 143-145

The Japan Times reports

Mongolian magician [“supermarket of tricks”] Kyokushuzan bundled out Tokitsuumi on Saturday to take sole possession of the lead [at 7-0] heading into the second week of the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament.

Lowly maegashira Kyokushuzan kept both his perfect record (8-0) and his lead on Sunday, with ozeki Dejima (at 7-1) right behind him, and 5 rikishi just one loss behind (at 6-2).

It’s been a very, very unusual tournament. Top-ranked Asashoryu lost two in a row, for what may be a personal worst since becoming yokozuna. And there are more foreigners than ever in the top Makuuchi division. In addition to the five Mongolians–Asashoryu, Asasekiryu, Kyokushuzan, Kyokutenho, and Hakuho–there’s the Georgian Kokkai, the Bulgarian Kotooshu, the Russian Roho, and the Korean Kasugao.

UPDATE, Day 9: After fellow maegashira (and former ozeki) Dejima beat Kyokushuzan on Day 9, they both share the lead, at 8-1, with yokozuna Asashoryu, ozeki Kaio, and sekiwake Wakanosato right behind, at 7-2.

UPDATE, Day 10: After losing again, Kyokushuzan is tied with Dejima, Kaio, and grand champion Asashoryu at 8-2.

As usual, more at That’s News to Me.

UPDATE, Day 12: Kaio grabs the lead, at 10-2, after Dejima and Asashoryu lose, dropping to 9-3. Asa is having his worst tournament of the year.

UPDATE, Day 15: Ozeki Kaio (13-2) defeats yokozuna Asashoryu (9-6!) to clinch the tournament. Kyokushuzan ends up with an 11-4 record. The foreign rookies Roho (10-5) and Kotooshu (9-6) did as well as the sole yokozuna. What a strange, fragmented tournament full of upsets!

While most of the focus in sumo’s Nagoya Basho is on sole yokozuna (grand champion) Asashoryu, who now shares the lead with lowly maegashira Miyabiyama at 7-0, I’d like to ask what the hell happened to the shooting star of the Natsu Basho in May, Hokutoriki, who came within one playoff bout of stealing the tournament from Asashoryu, after both ended up with 13-2 records on the final day. As a result, Hokutoriki was promoted to sekiwake, skipping the komusubi rank altogether. Now, halfway into the very next tournament, Hokutoriki stands at 0-7. He’ll be lucky to end up right back where he started from after this tournament. I give him credit, at least, for not dropping out, but showing up every day and taking his lumps.

That’s News to Me has a wrap-up.

UPDATE (Day 8): Make that Hokutoriki 0-8, Asashoryu 8-0.

UPDATE (Day 9): Hokutoriki went up against Asashoryu, so it’s now 0-9 vs. 9-0.

UPDATE (Day 10): Asashoryu, now 10-0, ruined Miyabiyama’s perfect record, leaving him 9-1. But Hokutoriki finally won one by defeating Kyokushuzan, leaving both tied at 1-9.

UPDATE (Day 11): Cushions fly on the final bout as former ozeki (champion), now sekiwake (junior champion) Tochiazuma (now 9-2) upsets Asashoryu (now 10-1). And ozeki Chiyotaikai (now 9-2) ruined Hokutoriki’s short comeback, leaving him at 1-10.

UPDATE (Day 12): Thanks to sekiwake Wakanosato, Asashoryu’s losing streak (2) was longer than Hokutoriki’s winning streak (1). Asashoryu and Miyabiyama are now tied for first place at 10-2; while Hokutoriki, Kyokushuzan, Harunoyama, and Wakatoba are tied for last place at 2-10.

UPDATE (Day 13): Hokutoriki et al. trail at 2-11, Asashoryu and Miyabiyama still lead at 11-2.

UPDATE (Day 14): Hokutoriki 2-12, Asashoryu 12-2

UDDATE (Final): Hokutoriki rises to 3-12, but Asashoryu wins the basho at 13-2.

Among other things, July Fourth this year marks the beginning of sumo’s Nagoya Basho. Former #1 maegashira (“leading” rank, the lowest ranking in the highest division) Hokutoriki, who forced the sole yokozuna (grand champion) Asashoryu into a playoff on the final day of the Natsu Basho in May, has been promoted two ranks, to sekiwake (junior champion), right below ozeki (champion, formerly the top rank). The Georgian Kokkai, who made his “big league” (makuuchi) debut in January, is now ranked a #2 maegashira.

As a backgrounder, I’ll offer a glimpse into the onomastics of sumo, focusing mostly on the foreign rikishi. Corrections from experts in either the language or the sport would be most welcome.

The Mongolians Asashoryu (‘Morning Green Dragon’) and Asasekiryu (‘Morning Red Dragon’) belong to the illustrious Takasago-beya (‘stable‘), whose current master’s ring name was Asashio (‘Morning Tide’), a name that dates back beyond the 46th yokozuna (1959) Asashio, whom I used to watch as a kid, as he fought the 45th yokozuna (1958) Wakanohana and the later 48th yokozuna (1961) Taiho.

The Mongolians Kyokutenho (‘RisingSun Heaven Roc/Phoenix’) and Kyokushuzan (‘RisingSun Eagle Mountain’) belong to the smaller Oshima-beya, whose master fought under the name Asahikuni (‘Morning Sun Land’).

The Mongolian Tokitenku (‘Time Heaven Sky’) and his Japanese stablemate Tokitsuumi (‘Time Harbor Sea’) belong to the Tokitsukaze-beya (probably ‘Time Harbor Wind’), which is reputed to be foreign visitor-friendly. The gloss ‘harbor’ doesn’t really do justice to tsu, which is the first character of tsunami, literally ‘harbor wave’, which would sound no more fearsome than “tidal wave” would in English if we didn’t know better.

The Georgian Kokkai (‘Black Sea’ in its “Chinese” pronunciation) and his Japanese stablemate Hayateumi (‘Tailwind/Gale Sea’ in its tricky native Japanese reading) belong to the fairly new Oitekaze-beya (probably ‘Chasing Wind = Tailwind’).

The Korean Kasugao (‘Spring Sun King’) belongs to the small Kasugayama-beya (‘Spring Sun Mountain’), whose master fought as Kasugafuji (probably ‘Spring Sun Wisteria’).

Although they belong to different stables (Miyagino and Otake, respectively), makuuchi-division Mongolian rikishi Hakuho (‘White Roc’) and juryo-division Russian rikishi Roho (‘Dew Roc’) share the character ho ‘large mythical bird’ (hence ‘roc, phoenix’).

After breaking Mongolian yokozuna Asashoryu’s winning streak early in sumo’s Natsu Basho, the top maegashira Hokutoriki looked good to win the tournament. He was the giantkiller, knocking off the higher-ranked rikishi one after another. He “preserved his one loss” (ippai o mamotta), going into the final day at 13-1. But Asashoryu also managed to preserve his two losses, entering day 15 at 12-2.

Well, wouldn’t you know it: On the final day, Hokutoriki lost to Hakuho, a Mongolian rikishi making his “major league” (Makuuchi) debut. Meanwhile Asashoryu managed to best ozeki Chiyotaikai. The giant and the giantkiller, both tied at 13-2, were forced into a playoff, in which the giant once again prevailed. Asashoryu now has three tournament victories in a row, and seven in all. Hokutoriki and Hakuho, who finished at 12-3, split the well-deserved Fighting Spirit prize.

Georgian rikishi Kokkai, who made his Makuuchi debut last tournament, finished at an impressive 10-5. Of course, I’m rooting for him to do well but, most of all, I want Asashoryu to shatter every record that Takanohana set during the 1990s.

As usual, “That’s News to Me” has more details, and even boldly predicts rankings for the Nagoya Basho in July.

UPDATE: The Argus links to an article, Sumo Goes International, which reviews the rise of the Hawaiian and then Mongolian rikishi, then adds this about the up-and-coming Black Sea (rather than Black Ship) sumo recruits:

Georgia, a “martial arts kingdom” that has produced many Olympic medalists in wrestling and judo, is also proving fertile ground for sumo. Georgian wrestler Kokkai (Black Sea) was promoted to the [Makuuchi] division this spring. At the end of 2002, a sumo ring was opened in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, sparking a surge of interest in the sport. Kokkai was also trained by his father, a former wrestler, and was a European junior wrestling champion in the 130-kilogram weight class. Young men training at the Tbilisi center are inspired to become the “second Kokkai.”

Following on the heels of Kokkai is the Russian-born Roho, who in November became the second European and the first Russian sekitori wrestler. Roho, who hails from the Caucasus, located to the north of Georgia, is also a proven talent who won wrestling’s world junior championship at the age of 18. And Kotooshu [Harp-Europe], a 20-year-old Bulgarian who made his sumo debut in November 2002 and stands 202 centimeters tall, is also gunning for the upper ranks as the first wrestler to use his considerable height as a weapon. He, too, had competitive wrestling experience prior to coming to Japan.

BTW, the -HO (long -HOU) ending on several of the names can be translated ‘roc’ (the huge mythical bird): So the Russian Roho is Dew Roc, and the Mongolian Hakuho is White Roc.