Something Completely Different - Sumo

On the Clack House, to pass the time waiting for word on Clay's album release date, we were posting about encounters with famous people. I'd already posted my short list when djs111 posted this:

I did see Akebono and Musashimaru outside the sumo arena in Tokyo.

I immediately scribbled out a new post, and starting uploading photos. About that time, lots of exciting things happened. It was announced that there was a winner of the "guess the initials of the new album" contest, then the winner posted about her conversation with Clay, and then Clay blogged. So I decided to spare my fellow fans the details of my brushes with sumo greatness, and blog about them instead.

Now by the time I'm done, you'll be thinking I was some kind of sumo groupie, but it wasn't like that. Just dumb luck.

So, here I am with the first non-Japanese Yokozuna (top ranked wrestler), Akebono, born Chad Rowan in Hawaii.



(Where I am, you ask? Well you can't be incognito and post your own picture on the freaking internet, now can you? You'll just have to take my word for it.)

Here "we" are again:



When I brought the film with the Akebono photos into the photo processing kiosk up the street, I thought the owner was going to have conniption fits. I was treated like royalty forever after.

Here's Akebono with his game face on:


6' 8" tall, 540 pounds. He'd make Ruben look like a little pixie.

Now Akebono was a lovely man, unassuming and dedicated to the sport, but my favorite was Mainoumi. Here we are together (minus me, of course):



I liked Mainoumi because he was small but scrappy, like me. He could triumph over really, really big guys, like the morbidly obese Konishiki:



The other wrestlers said Mainoumi could stick to the dohyo like he had glue on his feet. It was still a struggle for him because he was so small, and he had the misfortune of having Konishiki fall on him once. Not good. Even though the broken leg healed, he was never quite the same and eventually he retired. Here's a shot of Akebono cutting off a lock of Mainoumi's hair at his retirement ceremony, broadcast on Japanese television.



Since he retired, he's become a famous Japanese television personality; minus the sumo attire and hair-do he looks like this:



His wedding was televised too. Sumo wrestlers are huge celebrities in Japan. But, as I said, I was lucky. Here I am (invisibly speaking) with another Yokozuna, Wakanohana:



Wakanohana and his brother Takanohana were Yokozunas at the same time, a rare event indeed. Their father had also been a Yokozuna, and ran the biggest sumo "stable" in Japan. (Sounds like a place for animals, doesn't it?)

Sometimes the wrestlers can let their hair down, like when they are traveling for exhibitions:



Yup, I took that picture "backstage". Now why couldn't I ever be backstage during a Clay Aiken concert??

I had some other great sumo moments, such as a number of social occasions with the esteemed gyoji Shozaburo:



He'd probably tell you about how difficult I was to feed, as I refused to touch anything remotely exotic. One of my funniest moments was watching how uncomfortable he was in a donut shop. Shozaburo's name changed when he was promoted, and then he retired too.

What else? Well, I went to a kareoke bar once with Daishi, who loved to sing Whitney Houston, and was very, very good.



Here's Daishi singing traditional sumo songs:



I don't have any photos of the time some of us took a bunch of wrestlers out to dinner. The bill was outrageous, and the menu very squicky. Imagine a large hibachi in the middle of the table with about 20 beef tongues on it, looking exactly like what they were. Ew.

I never did get to meet the wrestler I thought was the hottest: the Wolf, Chiyonofuji. He was retired by then, and a famous stable-master. Here he is before his retirement, in Peru:



And in the special ring-entering ceremony for Yokozuna:



Rawr.

So that's my story of hob-nobbing with the very famous in Japan. How did I do it? Connections. What can I say? Luck. Now if only I were lucky enough to have that kind of connection with the Aiken. Sigh.


Technorati tags: Clay Aiken Clack House sumo Akebono Mainoumi Konishiki Chiyonofuji Shozaburo

Most of these photos I did not take, and those do not belong to me. The ones with me in them (invisibly) do belong to me. Photos copyrighted to those who own them.