In January, the tour stopped by Tokyo brifely and has now arrived in Osaka. Thankfully, the venue they were holding it in was just a scant 10 min away from our apartment. Useless facts aside, sumo wrestling is a traditional sport that's losing favour with young people and is viewed as somewhat of an old people sport. Whatever the stigma may be, I'll be damned if I'm going to miss out on this (truly) once in a lifetime opportunity.
Having packed our bag full of snacks and other assorted refreshments, Val, myself, Anh and Aaron headed down to see the fat guys rumble. As always, I was armed with my trusty camera. I must warn you though, the following post contains a lot, nay, copious amounts of guy ass.
Even seing them on tv and in pictures, you really don't have a good idea of how big these guys are until you're actually standing beside one of them. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid he was gonna eat me. If there's one word that can accurately describe Japanese culture, it would be hardcore. Most Japanese guys you see are mere twigs. However, when they wanna beef up they become the dude standing beside me. As you'll see in the following pictures, these guys aren't just fat, they're muscular meat tanks. The scary thing is, I saw other guys that were bigger than him but I didn't bother them for a picture lest I get my ass throughly kicked.
The tournament itself lasts for about two weeks and usually starts at around 9 every morning. The non-ranked (juniors) have a go at each other early on in the day while the ranked wrestlers come out around 3. A typical day will finish around 6. For each ranking, there's mini parade to introduce the wrestlers to the crowd. The apron/diaper things they wear are pretty elaborate and if I'm not mistaken have sponsor info on them. The seats are still pretty empty because most people start trickling in when the big names begin their matches.
Some dude getting tossed. You'd think that with such a small ring and fat guys pushing each other around, there'd be some kind of fence or padding to protect the spectators below. At one point one wrestler pretty much landed on one of the dudes in the sidelines. Thankfully, he was ok but you gotta wonder if anyone has ever been crushed to death by sumo...
Word on the street is that these guys actually train in judo to learn how to use their opponents strength against them as well as the plethora of wonderful throws. The ring is made of clay so I would imagine it hurts like a bitch when you get thrown down.
Here's the starting position. They get into position, stare at each other for a few seconds to psych each other out, then get back up and walk around a bit while everybody cheers. Rinse and repeat. The only way you can the match is actually going to start is when the ref starts squatting too.
I didn't manage to get too many decent action shots but here's one that turned out ok. Our seats weren't great, but they weren't in the nosebleeds either. Pricing for this kind of thing is akin to a Leafs game.
The guy with the white thing on his back is the Yokozuna, the current reigning champ. There can actually be more than one Yokozuna at a time. The current champ is Mongolian, which until not too long ago would have been impossible. They way to get the title is to out game your opponents and also get voted in by the judges based on your character. It's like survivor then in a sense. Or maybe survivor stole the idea from them? Anyhow, in the last match of the day this dude kicked ass. While he's pretty big he moves incredible fast.
Most matches end within 30 seconds because one guy just gets pushed out really quickly. For the matches that last longer, they get pretty intense. In this one, the wrestlers were just standing in that position for a good 30 seconds before either of them made a move. Of course it gets even crazier because everybody in the crowd is shouting.
And finally, the obligatory crowd shot. This place got pretty packed around 4. The awesome thing about sumo is that you can bring your own food and drink. Naturally, the other three got to drinking while I had to abstain so I could take some decent pics. Well, that and I'm a horribly cheap drunk. :S
Thanks for making it all the way to the end! I managed to film Sumo Dennis Rodman in his short match. People went shit crazy for this guy. Apparently throughout the tournament he hadn't won any matches, but he was still super popular. Guy finally caught a break I guess. Watching sumo on tv is kinda boring, but being there is pretty awesome. The atmosphere is incredibly intense and you've got all these old drunk dudes yelling which is totally awesome. Anyways, enjoy!
More to come shortly. We went to some branch burning festival a few weeks ago that I have yet to post about. That's all for now!
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