How one scrawny boy from Mongolia saved sumo
Hakuho Sho is the greatest of all time and has given his sport fresh life, says Daniel Schofield
Hakuho has done more than anyone to lift sumo out of the doldrums
The stablemasters who run sumo in Japan took one look at the skinny kid from Mongolia and laughed. At a shade over nine stone, there was no way this 15-year-old runt was ever going to make it in a land of giants who regularly tip the scales at around 35st.
His bags were packed ready to return home, before the Miyagino stable-master decided to take a chance on him on account of his father being an Olympic medallist in wrestling. That was 19 years ago. Last weekend, that skinny kid, now weighing 25st, emerged triumphant in the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament winning all 15 of his bouts.
Monkhbatyn Davaajargal, now known by his shikona name, Hakuho Sho, is to sumo what Roger Federer is to tennis or Michael Phelps was to swimming. Perhaps a closer parallel would be with American football quarterback Tom Brady, who like Hakuho, was passed over by team after team, before being selected with the 199th pick of the 2000 NFL draft by the New England Patriots and subsequently established himself as the “Goat” (Greatest Of All Time). Unlike the interminable Messi v Ronaldo saga, there is no debate that Hakuho is the greatest, even in a discipline with a near 2,000-year history.
His numbers see to that. The Spring Grand Sumo tournament was his 42nd championship victory and the 15th time that he did not suffer a single defeat, both records. So too his 1,120 career wins and his 832 wins as a yokozuna, the highest rank in sumo, which he reached in 2007. The only record he does not own is for most consecutive wins, having fallen six bouts short of the 69-win streak set 80 odd years ago.
These are staggering achievements in a sport decided upon the finest of margins. A sumo bout is typically decided within a few seconds, meaning the slightest slip or miscalculation will result in defeat. Despite their vast frames, sumo wrestlers require a high level of fitness and an even higher level of flexibility. Part of Hakuho’s training regime involves doing a shiko,a horizontal leg split, around 400 times a day. Speed is as much a weapon as size, and Hakuho’s combination of acceleration and agility have made him an irresistible force.
It is also a brutal sport, not just for the collisions but for the lifestyle. Their hairstyle, clothing, diet and even facial expressions are strictly controlled by their stable-masters. There is also institutionalised hazing of the younger wrestlers. Hakuho recalls receiving a kawaigari, effectively a beating, that lasted nearly 45 minutes.
“You may look at me now and see that I have a happy face, but at that time I was crying every day,” Hakuho said. “The first 20 minutes are just so painful, but after that it becomes easier because even as you’re being beaten up you start to feel less pain. Of course I cried, and when my elder told me that, ‘It’s for your own good,’ I cried again.”
And yet it was Hakuho who has done more than anyone to lift sumo out of the doldrums after a scandal involving match-fixing and yakuza gangsters rocked the sport between 2007 and 2011. Fans flocked to baseball and football, but Hakuho, as the dignified face of the sport, has brought the audiences back to sumo.
At 34, there is considerable doubt as to how long Hakuho will continue with so few records, let alone rivals, left to conquer. For all his durability, he is now showing signs of wear and tear, and he sustained an arm injury in his latest bout. It has been rumoured that he wants to play a part in the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and it would be fitting if Hakuho was given an international platform his greatness has long deserved.