Hometown Guy

Kotoshogiku Kazuhiro enters the ring, the obvious fan favourite. The crowd cheers when his name is called—read by the yabodashi, a type of assistant-cum-announcer—not via a clipboard but off a traditional Japanese fan. He knows he’s popular and the whole crowd, approximately 13,000 people crammed into the Ryogoku Kokugikan, know this too.

He catches a glimpse of his opponent for today’s final match. Hakuho Sho is a towering figure with muscle definition that’s made him one of the best sumo wrestlers of all time. He has an air of self-confidence that comes with rarely being beaten, holding a career record of 46–4 against today’s opponent.

Kotoshogiku bends over and picks up a handful of salt to purify the dohyo, the clay mound of the wrestling ring. He crouches and stares at his opponent, a man the size of a human billboard. They both stamp their feet as banners of advertising enter and exit the dohyo. All the while the yabodashi sweeps the clay like a man time forgot. Kotoshogiku crouches and for a final time, both wrestlers break to their corners to symbolically rinse their mouths and wipe themselves down.

Kotoshogiku knows he’s the one the people have their eyes fixed on. With his hand full of salt he plays to the crowd, hyperextending his back in a stretch that should be impossible for a man who weighs 177 kilograms. The people in the stands eat this up, whooping as his topknot approaches the clay of the wrestling ring. He tosses his handful of salt high into the air and the crowd applauds this nervous tic, replacing the salt in his hand with the crowd. His crowd.

Kotoshogiku and Hakuho walk to the centre of the dohyo, the slapping of their thighs audible as the 13,000 people become hushed with only the punctuations of 'Kotoshogiku!' breaking the nervous tension. They crouch, holding their positions with nothing between them but the fan of the gyoji, or referee. Nothing between Kotoshogiku and national heroism but a traditional Japanese fan.

***

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To understand the crowd’s love for Kotoshogiku, you need to understand the sport of sumo and its recent history. I arrived at the stadium early that day. With the thought of Tokyo’s bustling throng following me to the sumo wrestling, it was a good four hours until the best wrestlers, the maku-uchi, would make their grand entrance to the dohyo. Wearing kesho-mawashi, ceremonial silk aprons that look like something a grandmother would wear in the kitchen, they would walk together, paraded like prized livestock at a sale. I took my cushy seat in the top tier among a group of Japanese men who looked in for a big day.

Sumo wrestling is a distinctly Japanese sport and, like the culture, very hierarchical. The wrestlers, as with most things in Japan, are organised and divided into classes. These classes—such as the top-ranked maku-uchi—have their own ranking system, or banzuke. A ranking within a ranking is something that could only exist within this country of to-the-minute trains and orderly queues. Within the maku-uchi there are a total of five different rankings. At the top is the yokozuna, of which Hakuho belongs. Immediately below this is the ozeki, the rank of Kotoshogiku. For a wrestler to be promoted from the ozeki rank to the yokozuna, he must have won two tournaments in a row, shown consistency in his performance and a character worthy of the rank.

It’s important to note that with such an expansive ranking system and with roughly 800 professional wrestlers ranging from the lowly trainees to the top-ranked yokozuna, the best wrestlers are entertaining but the worst can be terribly boring. I sat patiently watching these fat and not so fat kids wrestle. I note how the weight of the wrestler rarely had any bearing on the outcome, with the heftier wrestler not always winning. I note the ladies walking up and down the aisles of the stadium, a pump in one hand, a nozzle in the other and wearing beige backpacks. Beer ladies.

After watching all I could of teenagers trying to throw each other into empty tatami mats of the ringside seats, I’d had enough. I made my way to the lower bowl of the stadium to find food. While I’m far from the only foreigner at the event, like most places in Japan a Westerner draws conversation from friendly people wishing to practise their English. A man whose age is difficult to guess approaches me. His black leather cap and numerous earrings make me think he’s in his early twenties but could just as easily be in his late forties with his face prematurely aged and cracked. In broken English, he asks whom I’ll be supporting in the final match of the day.

'Hakuho is a very good wrestler,' says the capped man. 'One of the best.'

'So that’s who you’ll support?' I say. 'Isn’t he Mongolian?'

'No, no! I support Kotoshogiku! He’s Japanese!'

After a panicked twenty minutes where I had managed to lose my wallet—and with the crowd now starting to file in—I manage to track it down. Following a little usher lady in a purple shirt she shows me towards the lost and found. The men behind me had turned it in. Embarrassed, I mention that had I lost my wallet in Australia I wouldn’t be confident I’d get it back. She seems shocked by this.

'We receive about nine lost wallets per day,' she says. I’m staggered by the figure, but sure enough when I sign for my lost wallet, I add my name to the list of foreigners who have already lost theirs earlier that day. I sheepishly return to my seat in the nosebleeds, surprised by the number of tourists that share these cheap seats, all here to view this Japanese curiosity. I offer beer to the men who handed in my wallet. Only one takes up my offer, the others choosing to stick to red wine.

By now the crowd has swelled, with foreigners everywhere watching foreigners wrestle. The ringside seats are now full too, with suits and dignitaries. According to a 2013 New York Times article by Daniel Krieger, the recent success in sumo by Mongolians and Eastern Europeans can be attributed to their willingness to incorporate techniques from other types of wrestling. Coupling that with the rise in popularity of baseball and soccer among Japan’s youth, and the decreased birth rate in Japan, there seems to be a strange paradox at play; Japan’s reluctance to change has maintained the sport of sumo while making Japanese wrestlers obsolete, yet the changing attitudes of the young has seemingly relegated the sport to the annals of Japanese culture. While there are no country-versus-country rivalries within the dohyo, it’s apparent the crowd is sick of the international dominance.

There’s an undeniable intensity in the Ryogoku Kokugikan. In one corner you have a Mongolian wrestler who is the incumbent winner of most, if not all, sumo tournaments; in the other you have Kotoshogiku, a man who would be the first Japanese wrestler in a decade to win the Emperor’s Cup and overcome what has apparently become a foreigner dominated sport. It’s day eleven of the fifteen-day tournament. With both wrestlers undefeated so far with 10–0 records, they have a lot on the line; Kotoshogiku with potential wealth, fame and national heroism; and Hakuho, a continuation of the status quo. After the niceties of the Japanese people, who am I to cheer against the hometown guy?

***

The slap of body-on-body is audible, rippling through the stadium like a starting gun for the crowd to begin cheering. The two push at one another, an epic toing and froing. Except it’s not. Kotoshogiku’s fate in sealed after just eight seconds. He’s defeated Hakuho, dominating and pushing him from the dohyo. Kotoshogiku’s face is vacant in what could be shock as cheering and floor cushions rain down from the crowd. No smiling, no celebrating. Just a faint bow as he leaves the dohyo and walks back down the tunnel from where he came.

***

By the time the match is over the red wine has got the best of the men behind me. This lends itself to an inflated sense of confidence when it comes to foreign languages and, not to mention, slurred words.

'From?' says the soberest man, a word that I can only assume has a question mark at the end.

'Australia,' I reply. 'Melbourne.'

He gives two thumbs up to my answer. His friend butts in with just one finger.

'Japan!' he says. 'Number one!'

***

As I watched the following days’ matches on television, Kotoshigoku is beaten. With his cauliflower ears he looks helpless as he is pushed from the dohyo, mouthing what could easily be the word 'Fuck' but is probably some other Japanese word. As this happens Hakuho sits beside the dohyo waiting for his match with his legs crossed like a patient child, hardly batting an eyelid.

Despite this, Kotoshigoku ends up winning the Emperor’s Cup with a 14–1 record, ending a ten-year reign by international wrestlers. The sentiment of Japan being number one follows me on the rest of my trip, but never in a hand-on-your-heart kind of way. The Japanese have a certain way of showing patriotism and that’s not it. This is a subtle pride seen in the ferry terminal on Naoshima Island, as people gathered around a television—to keep out of the cutting breeze and to cheer on their own—as he wins the Emperor’s Cup. It’s on the front page of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper announcing his win to the 126 million people of Japan. It’s in television news stories, beaming with pride as the reporter recounts where Kotoshigoku had grown up.