Professional Sumo

Professional Sumo can trace its roots back to the Edo Period in Japan as a form of sporting entertainment. The original wrestlers were probably samurai, often ronin, who needed to find an alternative form of income.

Currently professional Sumo is organised by the Japan Sumo Association. The members of the association, called oyakata, are all former wrestlers, and are the only people entitled to train new wrestlers. All practising wrestlers are members of a training stable (heya) run by one of the oyakata, who is the stablemaster for the wrestlers under him. Currently there are 54 training stables for about 700 wrestlers.

Sumo wrestling is a strict hierarchy based on sporting merit. The wrestlers are ranked according to a system that dates back hundreds of years, to the Edo period. Wrestlers are promoted or demoted according to their previous performance and a Banzuke listing the full hierarchy is published two weeks prior to each sumo tournament.

There are six divisions in sumo:

• Makuuchi (fixed at 42 wrestlers),
• Juryo (fixed at 28 wrestlers),
• Makushita (fixed at 120 wrestlers),
• Sandanme (fixed at 200 wrestlers),
• Jonidan (approximately 230 wrestlers), and
• Jonokuchi (approximately 80 wrestlers).

Wrestlers enter Sumo in the lowest Jonokuchi division and, ability permitting, work their way up to the top Makuuchi division. Only wrestlers in the top two divisions are salaried, and they are called sekitori (to have taken the barrier). Wrestlers in the lower divisions are regarded as being in training and receive a subsistence allowance, in return for which they must perform various chores in their training stable.

The topmost Makuuchi division has a number of ranks within it. The majority of wrestlers are Maegashira and are numbered from one (at the top) down to about sixteen or seventeen. Each rank is further subdivided into East and West, with east being slightly more prestigious. Thus, Maegashira two east is ranked below Maegashira one west and above Maegashira two west. Above the Maegashira are the champion or titleholder ranks, called the Sanyaku. These are, in ascending order, Komusubi, Sekiwake, Ozeki and, at the pinnacle of the ranking system, Yokozuna.

Yokozuna, or grand champions, are wrestlers who generally are regularly in competition to win the top division tournament title near the end of a tournament. As such, the promotion criteria are very strict. In general, an Ozeki must win the championship for two consecutive tournaments (or an equivalent performance) to be promoted.

It is a rank held at the moment by only one man, Asashoryu. Other recent Yokozuna include Akebono, Musashimaru and Takanohana, who retired in January 2003. In the previous decade, Yokozuna Chiyonofuji retired after winning an astonishing 31 tournaments. That's nearly as many as Akebono and Takanohana won together. Once a wrestler has been promoted to Yokozuna, he can never again be subject to demotion and i...