On Saturday, June 11th, the Dallas Sumo Club held the first ever “Cowboy Cup” sumo tournament. Dallas Sumo oyakata Corey Morrison came up with the idea to hold an amateur sumo tournament in conjunction with FitCon the weekend of the 11th, in Ft. Worth Texas. What he could not have predicted at the time was how blasted hot it would be that day – more on that soon.

After seeing some amateur sumo tournaments struggle to put together a solid program, Corey was dedicated to doing the absolute best he could his first time out. The results were quite impressive. He gathered athletes from across the US to the DFW area, holding competition in 4 divisions, including a women’s division. I think that every sumo club in the state was represented in some form or other, and everyone had a great time, in spite of a temperature that reached 108°F in the shade of the club’s enormous tent.

I had the honor of being part of the commentary team for the 4+ hour live stream, that seems to have gone off flawlessly. It featured a live feed of each match, the random comments of myself and Laurie from Sumo Kaboom, and some interviews with class winners and VIPs. If you want to check out the live stream, you can find it here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_xHzuoKDFQ

Jake from Grand Sumo Breakdown joined up, and produced the actual brackets, announced the matches and the winners. There were a set of shimpan who recorded matches on their phones from the corners of the dohyo, and on the occasions where a monoii was required, the crew reviewed the phone camera video to see who had won.

This is the first amateur sumo tournament I have been a part of, and it was quite excellent. Sumo seems to have taken deep root in Texas, with clubs in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio at a minimum, and with each club gaining members as they go along. My congratulations to the US sumo community, the Dallas Sumo Club, and Corey Morrison for putting on a fantastic show.

If you live in Texas, and would like to give sumo a try, the clubs are quite welcoming to new joiners, I urge you to give it a shot.