Nagoya July Sumo Tournament

The clay, the salt, the sake, the wonderful tradition of sumo will continue this July (12-23rd) in Nagoya. My favorite wrestlers are KotoOhshuu, Takamizakari, and Ama. I've been following Kotooshuu since his entry in the early 2000's, and he's always been a very powerful wrestler, but he lacks the ability to really surprise his enemies with anything other than brute strength. He is, or is near, 7 feet tall. He's next in line for Yokozuna, and if he wins a couple of tournaments we might have the first caucasian Yokozuna.



Takamizakari is a mediocre wrestler, but he's beaten Asashoryu (probably the strongest wrestler in the last ten years) before, so he has the element to surprise. He's nearsighted almost to blindness (big coke bottle glasses outside the ring) and he does a really funny opening kiai (an athletes way of powering up) that makes the crowd go wild.



Asashoryu (yokozuna) is in black and Takamizakari is in blue. Takamizakari starts pleasing the crowd from 4:55 and he gets a lot of applause for an exciting tachiai (fight). Takamizakari really doesn't have much of a chance though against Asashoryu.

Finally, I really have liked Ama from the beginning because of his somewhat small stature but awesome technical skill. He's almost the opposite of Kotoohshu. In this video, you can see Hakuho (the other yokozuna) has about 100lbs on Ama, and Ama puts up a very strong defense. Hakuho is out of strength, but gets Ama in a headlock and delivers him down to the dohyo.



Any sumo questions? Ask me. I've loved the sport since I first started watching it in the Akebono/Musashimaru days.