My friend Ethan Zuckerman weighs in with a great update on the state of Sumo today.
When I lived in Japan, I ended up watching a lot of Sumo on television. It’s a really fascinating sport, and there’s much more to it than two obese Japanese men running into each other. There’s a tremendous amount of technique involved, and the athletes involved are generally very strong and incredibly talented. While you’d think that American football players would be good at it, the few times they’ve tried have generally not been a success.
It’s interesting that the next wave of wrestlers seem to be coming from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; previously, it seemed that any foreign competition would come mostly from Hawaii and other Polynesian islands (see Akebono, formerly Chad Rowan, six-foot-eight and five hundred and twenty five pounds).