Saturday, March 17, 2012

It's Not Only About Fat Guys In Diapers



Ah, spring. The time of year when a young man's fancy turns to the Spring Basho, one of the four annual Sumo Wresting tournaments.

There was a time when I was teaching and had access to satellite channels, that I watched this sport with an obsession that rivaled any hockey fan. The kids were doing the Japan, Studies unit and that gave me an excuse to have them follow along with the fortunes of one wrestler in the tournament.

I would cut and paste from two vhs machines in order to edit together the story of one wrester and his matches. Usually there were a Yokazuna which means great champion - the highest level a fighter can achieve. We all really got into the history and traditions behinds this most Japanese of sports.

There is a lot to a Sumo match. There is tossing the salt to purify the ring. There is silent preening in front of your opponent. I matters who puts both hands down first and who puts them down last because that is what starts the match. The start is everything. If you can throw your opponent off for a quick second you can win. Otherwise is push and push until one of the two mountain sized men is forced out of the little fighting circle. It can be very intense to watch if you know the little things to look for. A good announcer is really helpful if you understand a few Japanse phrases.

The sport, however, is not without it's share of scandal.

Match-rigging claims are nothing new in sumo but until now there have never been any public admissions from wrestlers still active in the sumo world.

In 2000, Keisuke Itai, a former komusubi who wrestled under the name Itai, said he had been involved in rigging bouts during a 12-year career lasting from 1978 to 1991, which he said coincided with "the worst period for match fixing in the history of sumo."

Itai, who had made his allegations public in a series of interviews in the weekly magazine Shukan Gendai, said, "From 1984 to 1991, sometimes as few as two bouts out of 30 were legitimate."

In 1996, Itai's former stablemaster Onaruto famously opened a can of worms by alleging in the "Shukan Post" that sumo, a centuries-old sport steeped in tradition and an almost feudalistic moral code, was rife with fixed bouts, tax evasion, underworld connections, drugs and orgies.



The current Spring Basho is on after being cancelled last year. I have it in the download file and can think of nothing cooler to watch on a Saturday night whle the snow falls outside my window. I should dig out my Kimono to complete the effect.

I sill have my handprint of Akebono Tarō the first non-Japanse Grand Champion in Sumo History from my trip to Japan. He was still very popular at the time so I got to soak in his fame when he was at his peak.

Akebono Taro (曙 太郎 Akebono Tarō?, born May 8, 1969 as Chad Haaheo Rowan[2]) is a retired American born-Japanese sumo wrestler from Waimānalo, Hawaiʻi. Joining the professional sport in Japan in 1988, he was trained by pioneering Hawaiian sumo wrestler Takamiyama and rose swiftly up the rankings, reaching the top division in 1990. After two consecutive yusho or tournament championships in November 1992 and January 1993 he made history by becoming the first foreign born wrestler ever to reach yokozuna, the highest rank in sumo.

One of the tallest and heaviest wrestlers ever, Akebono's rivalry with the young Japanese hopefuls, Takanohana and Wakanohana, was a big factor in the increased popularity of sumo at tournament venues and on TV in the early 1990s.[3] During his eight years at the yokozuna rank, Akebono won a further eight tournament championships, for a career total of eleven, and was a runner-up on thirteen other occasions, despite suffering several serious injury problems. Although his rival yokozuna Takanohana won more tournaments in this period, their individual head-to-heads remained very close.




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