Ancient Japanese sport threatened in modern age
Public interest falling steady
TOKYO, Nov 30, (RTRS): Aspiring sumo wrestler Mainoumi once convinced doctors to inject silicone into his scalp to meet height requirements for the ancient Japanese sport. Such sacrifice is a rarity now in a sport beset by scandals and with popularity at an all-time low.
With a history spanning centuries, sumo once graced the Imperial courts of Japan and wrestlers were held in the highest regard. Sponsors lavished gifts on the hulking giants and to join the ranks of the sumo was considered a worthy occupation. Those days are long gone, however. Tarnished by scandals involving drug use, bout-fixing, violence and alleged links to Japanese organised crime, sumo struggles to fill stadiums and attract new fans.
Such is its decline that last month only one person applied to take the sport’s entrance exam.
This brought the total number of applicants for the year to just 56, the lowest since the current system of staging six major tournaments a year was introduced in 1958.
That compares to a peak of 223 in 1992 when muscle-bound Japanese brothers Takanohana and Wakanohana fired up the sport with their dynamic fighting styles.
“We should be wracking our brains to find solutions,” said Shoji Kagamiyama, head of a sumo training gym.
“At this rate there will be more wrestlers quitting sumo than coming in. If that trend continues there will be none left. New wrestlers are our most precious commodity.”
Last year sumo racked up debts of almost $50 million following a match-fixing sting and widespread arrests which led to a television black-out and a government ticking off.
The sport also drew outrage across Japan when a former gym boss was sentenced to six years in prison after a 17-year-old wrestler was beaten to death.
Last year, a gym chief was given a severe dressing down for beating three young wrestlers with a golf club for breaking curfew and not wearing traditional kimono outside.
“We don’t know the reason why the numbers are dropping,” a Japan Sumo Association (JSA) official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“You would have to ask (applicants) why, or if the problems have had anything to do with their decision.”
The situation is the latest manifestation of a long, slow decline. Public interest in the once-packed tournaments has been falling steadily over the past decade, with both crowds and television viewing figures down.
Even without the scandals, sumo’s popularity has been eaten away by ‘cooler’ sports. Sumo’s Spartan lifestyle and warrior code appears lost on a modern Japan obsessed with glitz and celebrity.
While baseball continues to rule the roost, there is a growing challenge from soccer, whose ‘cool factor’ has rocketed since the 2002 World Cup co-hosted by Japan and South Korea, stealing still further fans.
Sumo also lacks home-grown heroes such as baseball’s Ichiro Suzuki, who has broken Major League Baseball records for fun over the past 12 years, or soccer’s Shinji Kagawa, who sealed a big-money transfer to Manchester United earlier this year.
“There’s no question that sumo is at a turning point,” said Eiji Takase, editor-inchief of “Sumo” magazine.
“Compared to many professional sports the pay is relatively low and children think other athletes, like soccer players, are much cooler.”
Newly promoted yokozuna (grand champion) Harumafuji, the third successive Mongolian to reach the elite rank, suggested that sumo may be too hardcore for today’s pampered youth.
“Sumo is a strict sport,” he told reporters. “Of course there are people who feel there is no need to put themselves through such hardship in an age of convenience.”
In the late 1980s, wrestler Mainoumi talked doctors into injecting silicone into his head after he failed to make the height requirement of 1.73 metres.
He made his professional debut in 1990 and went on to become wildly popular for his incredible upset wins over wrestlers often twice his size.