Computer games of the 80s and 90s make so much more sense now. Chris invited me along to a Sumo tournament, to meet up with a representative of an embedded electronics company. There were the four of us, Sam, Chris, his wife and myself. We had a box on around the seventh row back – about two meters square, surrounded by rails about four inches from the ground seperating you from the next box.
We arrived around 2pm, to be joined by Sam later. Chris was giving me some background on the sport and the history behind it – his wifes parents are somehow involved with one of the stables so they know more about it than most. We were shown to our box and given a packed lunch (bento box plus many other things), there wasn’t really enough space there for four people plus that much food…
The tournament started with lower ranking wrestlers, working their way up to the highest ranking by the end of the day, with perhaps each ‘fight’ taking maybe five minutes, with preparation, psyching each other, fighting, then pronouncing winner. Each wrestler will only participate in one fight.
The building is a huge pyramid shaped roof, from which a ‘traditional’ roof is suspended, containing lighting and with coloured ropes dangling from each corner (green, red, white and black, which are supposed to represent the seasons). The ring itself is made of clay with a rice-straw circle around. It is raised, perhaps, 2 and a half feet, such that wrestlers occasionally fly off the ring and into the first couple of rows of audience.
I didn’t quite figure out the rules, but basically if you get your opponent to set a foot outside the ring or touch the ground with anything other than a foot you’ve won. There were a couple of close calls, where both participants flew spinning out the ring together, but thats what instant video replays are for, isn’t it?
Some of the matches are sponsored, adding to the prize money, when this happens there are a number of people parading around the ring with advertising banners of the sponsor. The final round had something in the region of 30 sponsors, each, I understand, contributes something like 200 pounds. I was surprised to see Hello Kitty sponsoring one round.
I enjoyed it more than I had expected to – its not so much violent as a show of strength.
12 comments