So YOU Think YOU'RE Committed to Wrestling?

What would you do to be able to wrestle?

Would you lose weight? Spit in a towel before weigh-ins? Run in the morning before practice and train vigorously during practice? Would you have a doctor implant silicone in your head?

To be recognized by the official Sumo wrestling organization in Japan, a new novice wrestler has to meet certain criteria. You have to be male, of course, and back in 1994,  you had to weigh at least 147.71 pounds and be a minimum of five feet eight inches tall. 

That should've kept sixteen-year-old Takeji Harada out of the sport.

But his doctor and he had other plans. To meet the minimum height requirement,  Takeji had his doctor implant six inches of silicone on the top of his head. He went from 5-2 to 5-8 and became a Sumo wrestler. 

I didn't 100% believe this story until I found that it had been reported in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. I'm not going to make fun of this, as I know the commitment one must make to wrestling, but I will quote this from the Washington Post account:

"It's sort of like some kid with a D average and 430 combined on his college boards trying to get into Harvard by wearing an Einstein mask."

This had apparently happened at least one other time, as another aspiring Sumo wrestler added height via a silicone implant. Unlike Harada, though, Mainoumi Shūhei only needed about an inch-and-a-half to meet the minimum, and unlike Harada, Shūhei had a distinguished career in the sport, rising to the rank of Komusubi. 

He even beat Yokozuna Akebono in a match. 

Because of the attention brought to the situation by young Harada's head boob, the Japanese Sumo Association officially ruled that future aspirants could not get around the minimum height requirement with silicone implants. 

On a final note, I have begun to watch Sumo recently. There is a current Basho right now that will wrap up in the next couple of days. It is the Grand Autumn Tournament, and Yokozuna Terunofuji just suffered his second defeat but is still leading the tournament at 10-2 with three matches remaining.

This youtube channel is offering a fantastic ability for people to get their toes wet, as there are matches after matches after matches without much in between. Yokozuna Terunofuji's loss is the last bout in the video, starting at 22:36:

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P.S. I want to live my life like a Sumo referee (or gyōji) controls a match. These guys always look like they're about to Kill Bill.  Also, they are constantly barking out something, perhaps instructions or insults or words of profound effect in the Shinto religion. I don't know. But they get Dalai Lama respect, and you never see a wrestler question a call, although they do have instant replay now.

UPDATE:  Yokozuna Terunofuji won the September basho. Below I've embedded video of his final match. As you can see, the video is over nine minutes long, but his match actually took about eight seconds and starts around 4:30. This video has commentary in English, so it is a bit more accessible. 

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