SUMO!!!/相撲!!!

This past Sunday I was lucky enough to watch the final day of matches of the Tokyo sumo tournament! HUZZAH!

I honestly wasn't all that excited to go. My friends were all pumped, but I was sort of meh about the whole thing. I think I've mentioned before that I'm pretty meh about most things. I was going along for the ride, maybe buy some things for people back home. Pretend to be cultured. Go once so if people ask me if I ever saw a sumo match I could say I had.

OMG HOW DUMB WAS I??? I LOVE SUMO. IT'S SO GREAT. HOW IS THIS SPORT NOT MORE POPULAR???

Seriously, if I could buy the sumo equivalent of season tickets I'd have already bought them. I went to the tournament not knowing squat, and now I want to learn EVERYTHING. I kept track of who won each match in the Makuuchi round and I'm gonna have to Google all of them. I spent almost an hour on Wikipedia reading some of the wrestlers' pages. I might even Google some of the Juryo round wrestlers, a few of them had very loud, very proud fans in my section.

Click to enlarge the photos.

Dots indicate big white dudes (they were the obvious foreigners)

Stars indicate the winners

Arrows indicate wrestlers who had significant vocal support from the crowd

We spent all day watching matches. I told my grandmother student we were there from the beginning, and she said I was crazy for staying so long. I think it was totally worth it, only because I don't think I would've appreciated the higher ranking fighters without seeing some of the newbies first. The Juryo and Makuuchi matches were far more interesting to watch.

I remember seeing this dohryo on TV when I was a kid. In the 90's there were two very popular high-ranking wrestlers from Hawaii, Akebono and Konishiki, and they always showed their matches as part of the nightly sports report on the news. My grandfather was apparently a big sumo fan, even though I don't remember watching sumo a lot at my grandparents' house. I'm not sure that he ever got to see a sumo match at an arena like this, so I'm very glad I had the opportunity to do so.

Beginning of the day - empty arena.

Aoiyama's match.
Four judges discussing who should win.

At one point, two wrestlers fell at the same time
ONTO THE HEAD JUDGE.

Of course that got discussed.

Makuuchi time!

Hakuho receiving his big sumo Stanley Cup thing.
The prime minister and an assistant gave it to Hakuho...

...who then single-handedly gave it to someone else.

I recorded Baruto vs. Kotoshogiku and a few other matches, but I think this was one of the best fights of the day. Sorry for making all kinds of stupid noises but it was super exciting!

And of course I came home with some sumo loot! I bought a hand towel with Kotoushu on it not knowing he wasn't going to fight that day. I thought between the Baruto towel and the Kotoushu towel, I should support the gaikokujin with the hairy chest! Although now I'm kind of sad that I didn't buy any cool Baruto merchandise, especially after that awesome fight.

Super cute sumo exercises towel.

I'M TOTALLY GONNA WATCH SUMO AGAIN IN JANUARY. BARUTO BETTER BE FIGHTING AND GETTING PROMOTED TO YOKOZUNA.