Sumo is fast becoming the UK's top cult sport. It is larger than life, full of colour and splendour, and has giant-size characters to match. They fight not just one another, but invisible forces in Zen world which is, for them, a way of life. These huge stars are national heroes in Japan, and are already big news in Britain. They include the 35 1/2-stone Hawaiian Konishiki, known as the Dump Truck; a blazing typhoon called Terao; and the most formidable Grand Champion for many years, Chiyonofuji, the Wolf. Channel 4's ever-growing audiences are among the many keen to know more about the great men themselves, who are set to arrive in the UK for the 1991 Japan Festival, when they will fight in the Royal Albert Hall. Here they all are, from the Grand Champions and big favourites to the heavy set of the lower senior ranks. Find out about their triumphs and disasters, their tastes and techniques, as well as all the background information on rules, rituals, training and tournaments to help you enjoy this mesmerising sport.

Contents

Introduction
Part 1 The foregroiund
Ring rites
Ranking the champions
Rules and techniques
Part 2 The profiles
The greatest
Chiyonofuji
Hokutoumi Onokuni
The largest
Konishiki
The big favorites
Akinoshima
Asahifuji
Hokutenyu
Kotoguame
Mitoizumi
Sakahoko
Terao
The heave set: Other first division contenders
Daijuyama
Enazakura
Fujinoshin
Hananokuni
Hananoumi
Itai
Jingaku
Kasugafuji
Kinoarashi
Kirishima
Kitakachidoki
Koboyama
Kotofuji
Kotoinazuma
Kushimaumi
Kyokudozan
Masurao
Misugisato
Ozutsu
Ryogoku
Sasshunada
Tagaryu
Takamisugi
Takanofuji
Takkonohama
Tochiniowaka
Tochitsukasa
Wakasegawa
Part 3 The background
The sport of gods
Stable life
Schedules and salaries
Zen in the art of machismo maintenance
Sumo glossary
Further reading (bibliography)

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was an odd cultural phenonomen in Britain. Channel 4, the slightly unconventional independent commercial tv channel, started showing selected bouts from the autumn sumo Basho, together with background segments and interpretation from a notable British Japanologist.

For a while, a segment of the UK viewing population was enthralled. Here was something different, alien and spectacular. There was an exhibition Basho held in London. But then, just as the sport was beginning to gain acceptance, it came to the attention of Britain's lowest-common-denominator entertainment industry, who focussed on the aspects of the sport that looked ridiculous or strange to the casual viewer. Sumo changed almost overnight from being respectable into a pub game played by drunken youths in "sumo suits" little divorced from inflatable sex dolls. Serious interest in the sport evaporated almost immediately.

This book, intended to give an English-reading audience a background in the basics of the sport and a working knowledge of the contemporary stars, appeared at exactly the wrong time; by the time it hit the shelves, there was no longer any audience for the sport. A shame and a pity, and more evidence of a Britain preferring to think itself more important in any and all ways than strange foreigners. This book is ultimately an undeserving monument to British cultural arrogance and stupidity.