Ozumo (the professional sumo circuit) is making an appearance in LA this June after putting on a performance in Hawaii last year, which was the first time in 14 years for the former sumo wrestler producing island.
Pretty slick site considering how analogue the sumo world is (many sumo-beya training stables now have their own sites and top ranked sekitori wrestlers have their own blogs, so the ancient world is slowly becoming digitized). Introductory video is nicely produced and contains lots of great scenes often not seen by the public, like all the training sessions. But it seems to overuse the Japanese sumo words so people need some prior knowledge of the sport, otherwise they’ll get lost quickly in all the lingo. Then again judo pretty much exclusively uses Japanese terms and it’s an Olympic sport, so that seems to be what sumo’s aiming at.
One FYI: about 40 wrestlers in the upper ranks of makuuchi make it to these overseas 2-day tournaments, but they always fly in two separate planes. This is to avert a situation where the world’s top sumo wrestlers are all lost in one plane crash.
PS: There should be a Mongolian tournament in the works as well, as Mongolians currently dominate the sumo world and Ozumo is watched regularly by Mongolians on TV. Sort of like how Japanese watch their major leaguers on TV broadcasts.
