In Japan, sumo is dominated by foreigners

Japanese have lost their grip on sumo because of shifts in their society

On the first day of the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament, Japanese fans were hopeful that 2013 might bring some change: an end to the protracted losing streak by Japanese wrestlers.

But if anyone needed a reminder of how unlikely that was, all they had to do was look up at the giant portraits hanging around the upper part of the Ryogoku Kokugikan arena, showing the winners of the past 32 tournaments around the country.

Not one of those portraits was of a Japanese. Just four Mongolians, an Estonian and a Bulgarian account for all 32 of those victories, which date to 2007.

The last time a Japanese wrestler won was in January 2006. But some observers say it is just a matter of time before the current wave of foreign dominance passes and a Japanese wrestler gets promoted to the rank of grand champion once again.
The first foreign-born wrestler to break through to the top was Chad Rowan, who left his native Hawaii to enter the world of professional sumo at 18. At the time, he was not thought to have great promise. It was his more athletically endowed younger brother that recruiters had their eye on.

But five years later, in January 1993, Rowan became the first non-Japanese sumo wrestler to reach the sport’s highest rank — yokozuna, or grand champion.

In 1999, another Hawaiian claimed that title, followed in 2003 and 2007 by two Mongolians, who also are among the top five all-time championship winners. In 2012, one more Mongolian became yokozuna, the 70th in history. (There can be multiple yokozuna at a time, or none.) During Rowan’s heyday, two Japanese brothers from a prominent sumo family each became yokozuna, which helped fuel a sumo boom, but now it has been 10 years since the last Japanese grand champion retired and seven years since a Japanese wrestler won a grand championship, for which there are competitions six times a year.

At the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament, foreign-born wrestlers made up one-third of the 42 rikishi who occupy the top division, yet they make up just seven per cent of the 613 total wrestlers in the sport. Though the media and fans make much of what some characterise as the disgrace of foreign dominance — the two current yokozuna are both Mongolian — those in the sumo community do not typically acknowledge any Japanese versus non-Japanese rivalry.

“When I was wrestling,” said Rowan, who is known in sumo as Akebono, “I wasn’t thinking, ‘I’m an American, I’m going to go out there, plant my flag in the middle of the ring and take on the Japanese.”’ He said he always considered himself a sumo wrestler first and foremost, the product of the Japan Sumo Association, the governing body of the pro sport.

Nevertheless, the persistent drought does put pressure on Japanese wrestlers.
Standing at 2.03 meters, or 6-foot-8, Rowan, now 43, attributes his success in part to being able to overpower his smaller Japanese opponents. (He once tipped the scales at more than 225 kilograms, or 500 pounds.)

“We were just brute strength,” he said, speaking of himself and a few other top-ranked Hawaiians in the 1990s. “We won fast or we lost fast. We weren’t too technical.”

Advanced techniques

But now, he said, foreign wrestlers, who mostly hail from Mongolia and Eastern Europe, are employing more advanced techniques to give them an edge.
The foreigners come from countries with long traditions of other forms of wrestling, said Mark Buckton, sumo columnist for the Japan Times, and some of the techniques they implement, like leg sweeps and lateral movement, throw Japanese opponents off.

“For Japanese, sumo is just about going forward,” he said. “That’s the honorable way to win. But they are stuck in the old way, and the Mongolians and Eastern Europeans have really developed the sport more.”

Another reason why the Japanese have lost their grip on sumo has to do with shifts in Japanese society, observers say.

There was a time when sumo offered a way for disadvantaged teenage boys, especially those from big rural families, to escape poverty and make something of themselves, much as basketball once did in the United States. But with Japan’s declining birth rate and greater affluence, the number of annual sumo applicants has been steadily falling. (Last year, it hit an all-time low of 56; at its peak in 1992, there were more than 200.) And while many schools used to offer sumo, few do now.

“There’s a lot more competition from ‘cooler’ sports,” like baseball and soccer, said John Gunning, a sumo writer and commentator. “Sumo is seen as old-fashioned.”
Non-Japanese wrestlers, however, still see it as a ticket to a brighter future.
“Most of the guys who come to Japan to take up sumo come from poor families,” said Hiroshi Morita, a sumo announcer for NHK. “So they have a big hungry spirit to succeed and support the family back home.”

One attempt to level the playing field, initiated by the Japan Sumo Association, which declined to be interviewed for this story, came about more than a decade ago when the association implemented an unspoken rule to limit the growing number of non-Japanese wrestlers.

“The sumo elders saw that there was a danger of this Japanese sport being invaded by foreigners,” said Morita, “so they were saying, ‘enough is enough.”’

The rule, which allows just one foreign wrestler per stable, resulted in much more careful vetting of foreign recruits, whereas in the days of Rowan, who had many foreigners in his stable, they were hauled in by the bunch and sometimes stuck together.

It remains to be seen what effect their reduced numbers will have on the sport in the long run.

“The peak has passed for foreign wrestlers,” Gunning said, noting that some promising Japanese talent was coming up through the ranks. For Japanese wrestlers and their fans, it is just a matter of riding out the Mongolian wave. Morita, though, is not as sanguine about the prospects of Japanese wrestlers’ reclaiming the top tier in the foreseeable future. “I think Mongolian dominance will continue for a very long time,” he said. (Of the 43 foreign-born wrestlers now, 27 are Mongolian.)

At the New Year Grand Tournament in Tokyo, some Japanese fans, who have been awaiting the next homegrown sumo star, were bracing themselves for what could be the 41st consecutive loss. (The tournament runs through Sunday.)

Spectators ran the gamut from the merely curious to diehard fans, like Sayori Gloster, 35, who had come with her husband and sister. An avid sumo fan since childhood, she lamented the current state of affairs.

“It’s so unfortunate that Japanese wrestlers haven’t been winning,” she said. “Considering that sumo is the national sport, it’s a bit embarrassing.”

Hiroko Ito, who never misses a grand championship, said she admired foreign-born wrestlers for their drive.

“Wrestlers who come from abroad really work hard,” she said, sitting in her kimono as two rikishi geared up for a bout in the ring behind her.

“They’re determined to move up. But Japanese wrestlers seem satisfied with just getting by. I think it would be nice if they pushed themselves harder.”