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At the end of this blog post you can find resources to watch next month's sumo tournament, but first I want to tell you about how my best friend destroyed my knee when I was sixteen years old.
To make up for our small school, my friends and I took up amateur grappling on the foam around the swingset. It was only a few of us, though I'd challenge people over and over to do it. I really enjoyed grappling, probably because I was naturally strong (my uncle had to instruct me on how best to set down an anvil when I was five) but also because I liked wrasslin and liked the actual grappling part of it most. So I'd try it on with anyone that'd be willing to, from arrogant sons of lawyers to proud nerds that took judo.
When I wrestled my best friend it was different. Josh was a martial artist with a birth defect. Born with literally half a heart, he started fights specifically to see if someone could stop his heart so he could be done worrying about it. He did not tell me this until well into our twenties, around the time where he figured he was going to try living for something instead. As a teenager unaware of his very literal death drive, I was just thrilled to get to try to be strong.
Our matches would start by interlacing the fingers of my right hand and his left. He had actual martial arts training and a severe speed advantage so to get some kind of even starting ground that's what we did. We'd count down from 3 and collide, moving for position and rolling around until either someone tapped out or we rolled off the mats onto the concrete. Sometimes though, we'd try to be silly instead, and instead of circling each other we'd deploy The Paintbrush: skipping around and attempt to limply drag our hand on each other while giggling theatrically. The downside to this fun joke is that we never communicated when we were going to do this instead of grapple. So, when I was feeling silly, and he definitely was not, he tore my ACL quite badly by tackling me at the leg when I was doing my first skip.
Maybe if my legs worked I wouldn't have spent the next decade scoffing at professional sports in the United States over some very rudimentary "capitalism bad" logic. I would've been in a position where I picked teams from my hometown, instead of coming up with spurious reasons to pick the teams I do support. I would've had the chance to learn a sport the way a lot of people do, with some mixture of Doing in amongst Reading and Watching. I would've been harder to discourage from quitting the NFL after they blackballed Colin Kaepernick. I would remember less of my life before football fandom, had less security in what I would even occupy myself in the part of the year I'd devoted to the football season. I wouldn't have found myself searching for alternatives until I remembered my father talking excitedly about how much fun it was to watch sumo now that there was a Yokozuna from the US.
. . .
Two games are at the center of sumo wrestling. The most surface level game is the actual matches in the ring. Rules are simple. Success is clear. Two wrestlers squat across from each other, and signal readiness for the bout by putting their hands on the densely packed clay arena, or dohyo. There's a ring of rice reeds buried into the clay. The game is to simply upset their balance inside the circle, either by removing them from their feet, or removing them from the circle. The attire is identical and scant, providing the same advantages while assuring no hidden weapons or armor. Matches can end in a flash. Matches are usually at least brief. Matches that aren't brief will fill the air with a fear way beyond tension, minute adjustments in grip and balance preparing a thunderclap finish to their bout, a decisive movement that ends the game before the flashing lights of the cameras.
The second game is the game of rank and advancement. There are six tournaments, in every odd numbered month on the calendar. Each tournament is fifteen days. The goal is to achieve a winning record in a tournament. Since there's fifteen days, records will be uneven. There is no chance for a tying record. You will either have a winning record or a losing record, and your rank will move accordingly.
Hundreds of wrestlers participate in regimented matches, spread between six divisons. Lower divisions have more wrestlers in them than higher divisions. This is why searing for "sumo rankings" produces images of triangles. Since these lower divisions have such multitudes, they fight every other day, for a total of seven matches. Consistant winning records in these low ranks is the only way out of these low ranks, and everyone wants out.
Only the top half of the pyramid gets paid. If you were to find one of the ranking pyramid graphics on the internet, the point at which you begin having a salary is called Juryo. Everyone below that lives meagerly on allowances given by the stable. Ranking also improves how you're treated in the stable. This is a darker topic that I do not have expertise to talk about confidently, so I recommend using your favorite search engine and looking around for "sumo hazing." Life is brutal for the lower ranks. Many wrestlers wash out.
At the top of this ranking hierarchy is the yokozuna. I'd hazard a guess this is the second most common piece of knowledge about sumo in the US trivia folder, the first being a dead horse named Diapers. The reality is that the Yokozuna is such an elite ranking that in the recorded history of sumo wrestling, going back to the 1700s, there's only been 73 yokozuna. The requirement for Yokozuna is simple enough. The first is to become an Ozeki, the second highest rank in sumo. This requires reaching the third highest rank, and then winning 33 matches across three tournaments at that rank. Once they make Ozeki rank, to ascend to Yokozuna requires two consecutive tournament victories. This will usually mean records that are damn near perfect 15-0 performances.
For example, Akebono Taro reached Yokozuna after winning the November tournament with a 14-1 record, and the January tournament with a 13-2 record. In doing so, he became the first non-Japanese yokozuna. At 6'8", Akebono was a titan in sumo, who's long reach made him a completely different challenge than most other wrestlers of his day. Topping out at around 500 pounds, it wasn't like the fight got easier when they bypassed his powerful shoving attack. He would end his career in 2001 with 11 tournament victories, and 13 second place finishes. He would also retire with a fellow foreign cohort at the Yokozuna rank, the Samoan monolith Musashimaru. Akebono's ascent to Yokozuna is the beginning of a signature element of the current trend in sumo wrestling: foreign dominance.
- - -
In a 2017 interview centered around his pending achievement of passing the all-time win record, the 69th Yokozuna Hakuho Sho was asked about what lay ahead for him. Though I cannot find the exact quote, I'll paraphrase what he said: "The only competition I have is in the history books." This would be a brash statement were he not so familiar with making history in Sumo. He's the fourth foreign Yokozuna out of six. He's the second Mongolian Yokozuna out of four. He is also likely the greatest sumo wrestler of all time. A brief recap:
-Hakuho also holds the record for the most top division wins. That record is 1076 and counting.
-The record for most championships won in one career stood at 32 since 1971. The record was set by Taiho, the great Yokozuna of the 1960s. In January 2013, Hakuho had promised Taiho, at his deathbed two days before he passed away, that he would surpass this record. In January 2015, he did. Hakuho has since won an additional 12 championships, setting the current record at 44. The five below Hakuho now are Taiho (32 from 1960-1971), Chiyonofuji (31 from 1981-1990), Asashoryu (25 from 2002-2010), Kitanoumi (24 from 1974-1984) and Takanohana (22 from 1992-2001)
-He also tied second place and first place for the most consecutive championships, with 7 (2010-2011) and 6 (2014-2015). Taiho, coincidentally, set the second place record twice ('62-'63 and '66-'67). The man who he has tied at first is fellow Mongolian Asashoryu, who is the only man to win all six tournaments in a single calendar year.
-One of the most unique achievements in top level sumo tournaments is winning with a perfect record. It's a difficult feat, to fight 15 straight sumo matches against the highest competition possible and emerge victorious against all opponents. Hakuho has done it 15 times.
-The toughest spot to be in during a tournament is the Playoff. Playoffs are a rare tie-breaking procedure, wherein if the top two members of the upper division finish tied, there is a second match that same day against that opponent to determine the winner of the tournament. Hakuho has tied two records in these playoffs. He has appeared in 10- as many as the great Yokozuna of the 1990s, Takanohana- and won 6- as many as the great Yokozuna of the 1980s, Chiyonofuji.
-Perhaps the easiest way to explain the complete dominance of Hakuho is this record: most wins in a calendar year. Earlier I mentioned the schedule for sumo tournaments: there's six tournaments a year, in all the odd numbered months. There are 15 matches a tournament for an upper division sumo wrestler. That means there are 90 matches a year for an upper division sumo wrestler. In 2014, Hakuho (age 29) tied for 6th place by going 81-9. He is tied with Taiho, the great Yokozuna of the 1960s. In 2013, Hakuho (age 28) tied for 4th place by going 82-8. He is tied with Kitanoumi, the great Yokozuna of the 1970s. In 2010, Hakuho (age 26) tied the all-time record for the most wins in a calendar year by going 86-4. He is tied with HIMSELF (AGE 25) THE YEAR BEFORE.
Hakuho is now 35. His career is winding down. Soon it will be time to learn the identity of the great Yokozuna of the 2020s. He has set one last achievement ahead of him: he wants to wrestle until the Summer Olympics in Japan. He has conquered every other challenge set before him. Watching sumo this year will be watching the end of an era of utter dominance, and the dawn of what comes next.
= = =
A lot of things could lead a football refugee to fall in love with sumo wrestling, but instead of ruminating on the connections between the two or opportunity presented by my rejection of football, I'm going to take a more personal tack and start here: It is so, so rare to see large male bodies doing anything cool without it being a joke. Venues in the US for the presentation of big bodies doing cool things without being punchlines is pretty much hip-hop (and increasingly less so), and football linemen.
Here's an example: I make rock music, right? I'm pretty good at it now. I write every part of it and produce it all, and sing on it too. I'm up to seven albums and I'm writing pieces of two others. Now do a quick mental rolodex and count fat, male, bandleading, singing guitarists. I came up with two: B.B. King and D.Boon from the Minutemen (RIP). The endless expanse of recorded music, and I can think of just two. Everything I learned to do, I learned from people that I can't guarantee wouldn't hate being seen around me. It is like this throughout much of US entertainment, where fat men are jokes or villains or derided or both. Like thin men can't be as cruel or something.
Going from a lifetime of media where "cool big men don't exist" straight into sumo wrestling was rejuvenating. Here was a bunch of big men looking proud and strong, being athletic and being the centers of not just attention but acclaim and cheers. Plus, there's no way around seeing how big they are. I started looking at myself differently, seeing my body's dimensions the same way I saw the sumo wrestlers. I took better notice of how my legs moved, stable points in my hips, the length of my arms and how subtle shifts in my shoulders changed how easily they could move in which directions, and more and more.
On top of that, it's all the physicality of football tackling without any of the US Militarism.
On top of that, it's a sport where the hierarchy is unambiguous. There's no parity, there's no ties, there's no 8-8 seasons of nothingness.
On top of that, it's a clear and understandable individual combat sport, where the goals are crystal clear, and where replay is an embellishment instead of a requirement.
That's why sumo.
* * *
So! Watching sumo!
There's no legal way to do it in the US. There's a variety of channels that will upload matches onto youtube, so in lieu of linking to them directly I'll give some advice.
The six annual tournaments (or Basho) all have specific names: January's Hatsu Basho in Tokyo, March's Haru Basho in Osaka, May's Natsu Basho in Tokyo, July's Nagoya Basho in Nagoya, Tokyo's Aki Basho in September, and November's Kyushu Basho in Fukuoka. No matter what year it is, those are the names of the tournaments.
Good luck!
One link I will give is to the sumo database, which is at http://sumodb.sumogames.de/. This website contains a complete history of every result in sumo, and is the place you can go to learn about individual wrestlers. You can see their individual performances in tournaments, as well as their combined performances against individual wrestlers. This is more for raw stat-heads than people looking for a cogent written history, but if that's what you're looking for, Wikipedia has a series of recap articles on The Year In Sumo that's usually solid enough to capture the overaching stories of the year while recapping the winners of the tournaments.
Comments
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Eddie Goldman
A good post. We need a sumo group or more sumo people on this new site.
Two things:
First, Fats Domino played the piano in his band and was appropriately nicknamed.
Second, I am not sure how it was when you wrote this, but you can legally watch the bashos in the U.S. on NHK World-Japan. They are on TV in many markets, have a free app, and post the live feed and daily highlight show in English on their web site. More info is at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/sumo/ and https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/howto/.
Arigato!
Lorelai
I know it's just a lil blog post but this is one of my fav articles ive read this year