Finally a call to arms and the fighters are staring each other down with both fists on the floor ready to lurch at each other at the umpires command. Then boom. The noise of skulls colliding, or a nose shattering against a shoulder, then frenzied slaps and pushing. Only seconds pass and it’s over. One wrestler is down and hurting, maybe both, maybe in the ring or maybe collapsed on the front row seats, in any case only one will have won. The crowd will be screaming and baying for more blood in a way you wouldn’t imagine the stereotypically reserved Japanese to do. Then it happens all over again.
The Adventure Doesn’t End When the Sumo Does
At six o’clock when it’s time to leave the sumo behind, many of the crowd retreat to eat the hotpot stew that helps put all that meat on the fighters’ bones. Ryougoku has many of these sumo stew (chanko nabe in Japanese) restaurants of which many are owned and often even run by ex-fighters. For about $50 a head you can have a few drinks and enough stew to make you skip breakfast the next day. Each course will start with a bit of raw fish like tuna or snapper served as sashimi (sushi without the rice). After this a big hotpot will come to the table where it will boil away as you add vegetables and fish balls or chicken to the soy-, pork- or salt-based soup before taking them out and dipping them in a selection of dips. It’s pretty simple and pretty good.
Which Fighters Should You Look Out For?
At the time of writing, 24 year old Mongolian wrestler, Asashoryu, had just won his sixth straight grand tournament, further cementing his position as the pre-eminent fighter of the day. For a wrestler he is unusually small at only 140kg of solid muscle, and he is very agile. But, his style is perhaps the most aggressive of all active fighters and his bouts tend to provide an explosive finish to each day. Another crowd pleaser is Takamizakari, a poorly sighted Japanese wrestler with a big smile and glasses thicker than a bunker door. Although Takamizakari is not in the same class as Asashoryu he is still adored by most sumo fans for his never say die attitude even though he fights almost blind, and his unusual warm-up that sees him punching himself about the face and torso.