A great video above of Ura’s day 10 match against Toyohibiki. Some things about this that make me smile:
- Note that Ura has his own approach / style to the typical events that take place once both rikishi enter the ring. Washcloth? Nah, thanks. Salt? Just a pinch. Staring and glaring? What’s the problem here jumbo?
- Ura is a class act. Please note how far he goes to act like he was raised with manners and respect. The bows, the interaction with the ushers, all of it.
- He genuinely seems to be having fun. Much like Amakaze, yes it’s competitive, yes it’s a profession, but these guys seem to just enjoy the match a bit more than most. It’s as if they would wrestle if they had nothing else to do on an afternoon.
This really makes me very optimistic about the future of Sumo.
The bow is something I’ve missed w/ the retirement of my homie, Homasho.
Things like that can be infectious, you get one trailblazer who sets a tone, and you can see a whole cadre of rikishi adopt a new “noble but humble” approach, which I think would be a very good thing for sumo.
I know to some extent the struggle of Kisenosato is driving the surge of popularity of sumo, but I also think (and hope) that the Japanese people are deciding it’s ok, maybe even really good, to embrace their traditions and cherish them.
It does not hurt that there is some great competition going on, but to some extent, sumo is going to be a bit stagnant until the current crop of Yokozuna and Ozeki move on – much as I hate to say it, as some of them are amazing. But when you have Hakuho, there is a very hard ceiling to anyone’s performance.
Now with Hakuho out, we are really getting to see just how solid Harumafuji is. While everyone was focused on how the Hakuho kyujo was a benefit for Kisenosato (turns out it probably wasn’t), it seems to have really benefitted Harumafuji quite a bit.
Plus you have a great question for November now (assuming the Boss will be back) – how much does Hakuho need to push to show he is still the greatest Yokozuna in history?
We live in great times for sumo.