Sumo: What a Story!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51283431

What a wonderful story. A sumo wrestler, with a ranking below all the other wrestlers wins the tournament. There are six tournaments each year; Jan. March, May, July, Sept, and Nov. Along with a lot of exhibition and regional tournaments. Hollywood, or whomever, never could have written such a wonderful story of the lowest ranked wrestler in the tournament winning. It should be noted the two highest ranked wrestlers withdrew with injuries, but that doesn't discount the other 30+ wrestlers sill left in the tournament, in the higher ranked divisions, who always had a chance to win and ranked above the eventual winner.

Sumo wrestlers in public, at least, are expected to be stoic, or emotionless, but seeing this wrestler begin to cry immediately after he won, goes to show even sumo wrestlers are human and are under tremendous pressure to perform/win.

If they lose more than they win in each tournament they can potentially be demoted, which I assume less income too. There are 15 matches for each tournament that starts on a Sunday and goes for 15 straight days. Most matches might last a minute or a little longer but the wrestlers are under extreme pressure and the physical force of two 300 pound men hitting each other at full force can take its toll on the body. So a record of 8 wins and 7 losses is the standard, the minimum standard they try to get each tournament.

The tournament is shown on NHK TV every afternoon during the 15 day tournament. Since there are both junior and senior level divisions, the junior level divisions, might also be shown beginning at 3PM  each day. In the Basho, or stadium, the crowds for the junior division are almost non-existent, or so it seems. But as it gets close to 4PM, you can see more and more of the Basho being filled up.

Around 3:45 or so, the senior division wrestlers will enter in two groups,  called east group and west group and will separately enter the ring area, and each of their names will be called. They will do a ceremonial routine and then leave the ring and then the other group comes in and does the same thing.

Then one of the highest ranked wrestlers will come in and do a ceremonial routine, and then the senior division part of the tournament begins. Wrestlers then wrestle, for the most part, according to their division ranking and their tournament record for that tournament.

After 5PM is when you see the highest ranked wrestlers of the senior division and the highest ranked wrestlers with the best record for the tournament.

So each day the order of when the wrestlers will wrestle the next day is re-set, except for the highest ranked wrestlers called Yokozuna, who always wrestle around 5:45 regardless of their record, but most always have a wining record in the tournament.

Since I have Japanese TV on my notebook computers and tablets, I often watch the sumo tournament just to see what is going on. I'm not that interested in it as sport but more related to Japanese society.

I also watch Japanese TV every night and every morning, hopefully to improve my Japanese listening skills.

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