Sumo Topics

Sumo News Update: July 2026

Andy Aki Basho, Juryo (十両), promotion, Retirement , , ,

Welcome back! Hopefully you have all sobered up from your senshuraku parties by now. Jungyo will kick off this upcoming weekend in Gifu city, an hour drive north of the venue in Nagoya. But before we focus on the tour this weekend, let’s cover a few items from earlier this week.

Juryo Promotions and Retirements

On Tuesday, the Sumo Association announced the three wrestlers who earned promotion to Juryo. Two will make their sekitori debuts (shin-juryo): Tanji (Arashio) and Tokifudo (Tokitsukaze). Nabatame (Futagoyama) will return after over a year.

Daishomaru’s retirement was the biggest announcement coming out of Nagoya. Subsequently, four more retirements have been announced: Tatsuosho, Asashorei, Nishikio and Asahirai.

Ticket Price Increases

Today, the Sumo Association announced wide-ranging price increases for tickets to tournaments in Tokyo and Osaka. Nagoya and Kyushu ticket prices are unchanged. The new pricing plan is here. For those of you who live in areas where public transit has “peak” or rush-hour pricing, you won’t be shocked that the Sumo Association has additional price rises for Day 14 and Senshuraku. And in Tokyo, they’re offering a new SS-tier seating arrangement, starting at 22,500-yen/person and going up to 24,000 on weekends and holidays and 25,000 during the final weekend.

Even if this price increase is not done in an official way, those of you who actually go to the tournaments are probably already paying higher prices on the secondary markets. For many of us foreigners, those secondary markets and resellers have been the only way in, anyway. Now, the official price is going up and the resellers will likely have to pass on the cost to their customers.

For most goods, when the demand suddenly increases the demand curve shifts outward. Prices go up but suppliers are encouraged to produce more. This moderates some of the price rise. In the FIFA world, the stadiums get bigger and the World Cup tournament expands to include more teams and more games. More fans are served. From what we’ve heard of Nagoya, the new seating arrangement for the new IG Arena does have a modest increase in the number of seats but not as much as would be possible. The Kyokai wants to maintain quality of viewing the action.

So, unfortunately for the sumo world the supply is relatively fixed. We cannot get more than 6 tournaments a year and these venues are not going to be expanded soon. We can get new products to try to satisfy that hankering for sumo action, like new Jungyo events (even in London and Paris) but we won’t get any new tournaments. Let’s face it, they’ve already expanded the calendar with the Kyushu tournament added back in 1958, I think. I’m too lazy to check SumoDB at the moment. Suffice to say it was a long time ago that they went to a six-basho calendar. If that changes I will eat Shonosuke’s fancy hat.

Yusho Prize Increases

The good news of the sumo boom is that the Sumo Association also announced substantial increases to the yusho purse and special prizes awarded at honbasho. Those increases will also start at Hatsu Basho 2027. The Top Division (Makuuchi) title purse will go up from 10,000,000 yen to 20,000,000 (*updated) — or roughly $124,618. Special Prizes increased from 2 Million to 3 Million. Yusho values below:

DivisionCurrentFuture
Makuuchi10 Million20 Million
Juryo2 Million3 Million
Makushita500,000700,000
Sandanme300,000500,000
Jonidan200,000300,000
Jonokuchi100,000200,000

The calendar is pretty full over the next month. August 31st the Aki banzuke will be released. I hope to give a few more updates about Jungyo before then.

Suginomori Eri: Profile of Okamisan

Andy Sumo Topics , ,

Sports Graphic Number is a Japanese sports magazine and they published an interesting profile of Suginomori Eri in this latest issue. She is the wife of Ajigawa-oyakata (ex Aminishiki). The article details the role she plays as Okamisan in the heya, waking at 5am and working late into the night. Her husband manages on-dohyo activities and training while she handles much of the day-to-day operations, from organizing events to emailing supporters (even foreign supporters, in English).

image of the front of Ajigawa stable

The importance of okamisan, and the workload, is well known in Japan. But as foreign fans, we do not often see much about them. They are often present at promotion ceremonies and heya events but they’re rarely mentioned and their role is not often detailed in the media — especially the English-language media. So, I wanted to make sure to highlight this particular article.

There is, understandably, variation among heya as the larger ones often have gyoji and other staff available to help with management. However, for a small group like Ajigawa, much of this falls to the okamisan. The wife of the master is often unheralded, performing many tasks in the background and without plaudits or praise from the public. In Japanese, the phrase “縁の下の力持ち” (en-no-shita no chikara-mochi) expresses this concept of someone who works hard in the background, invisibly, for the success of the team or another individual.

The Number article speaks of difficulty coming early for the couple. Soon after marriage in 2013, Aminishiki’s injuries began to take a toll on his active career. He retired in 2019 with his retirement ceremony originally scheduled for July of 2020. The Covid pandemic, however, hit hard and resulted in delaying his haircut twice — ultimately taking place in May 2022. This meant Suginomori had to re-do promotional materials, reorganize the event and hand-process refunds, twice.

On a day-to-day basis, she is preparing bento for the couples’ three children and ferrying them to the train station to go to school — as well as managing the relationships with corporate supporters and visitors to the heya for keiko and chanko. With Haru basho ahead, she is the first to head to Osaka and arrange for accomodations.

Now, with a new Ozeki in the heya — who happens to be on a rope run — the Okamisan is coordinating his Ozeki promotion party, scheduled for June. After each tournament, she schedules time to check-in with each wrestler because ultimately she is a surrogate mother figure for each man. They’ve also set up a supporter association for retired wrestlers since many will retire quite young without having established a successful sekitori career as an active wrestler. She wants her wrestlers to be proud of their time with the heya, even after they have moved on.

The article is a great peek into the life of an Okamisan. Though they’re often out of the public eye, likely by choice, they play a crucial part in this traveling circus we call Grand Sumo.

Terunofuji Retirement Ceremony

Andy Retirement, Sumo Topics, Terunofuji (照ノ富士) , ,

Sumo News is not over! There are a number of sumo-related events going on in-between tournaments. Kokugikan hosted the retirement ceremony of former Yokozuna, Terunofuji on Saturday, January 31.

The event was streamed live on Abema. I had a conflict with a previously scheduled engagement, so I missed it but it looks like Terunofuji put on a great show. There was shokkiri performed by Asaazuma and Suigafuji with Shikimori Kinosuke as the gyoji. Shokkiri is a sumo comedy routine that’s generally included in all of these exhibition events, like with jungyo. They explain the rules of sumo by basically breaking all of them.

There was a bracket-style tournament featuring eight of the lower-ranked Isegahama wrestlers. The bracket is in the Twitter post below. Let me know if any of these are not working and I’ll see if I can source them from elsewhere. Some of the Twitter embeds get blocked but others are visible to people without accounts. From the top left we have Mienofuji (Tenshoho/Mukainakano), Satorufuji, Hananofuji (Kiho/Kawazoe) and Suzunofuji. On the right side we have Asahifuji, Churafuji (Chura/Chikuba), Yumenofuji, and Arashifuji (Matsui).

The yusho was claimed by Asahifuji, fresh off his Jonokuchi division title. He is the much-hyped rookie who was given the shikona of the former Yokozuna (and former Isegahama-oyakata). The Japanese press seems to like calling him the strongest recruit ever. He has been living with and training with the heya for the last four years since he couldn’t officially join with Terunofuji on the books as the resident foreign wrestler. He is also Mongolian and we will keep an eye on his career, that’s for sure.

There were also exhibition bouts with sekitori, capped off with a bout between Hoshoryu and Onosato. Hoshoryu picked up Onosato (be careful with that knee!) and dropped him into Oshima-oyakata’s lap. Oshima-oyakata (former Kyokutenho) seemed to be a common target for falling rikishi but took it with a laugh. Seems like Kirishima was a target, too. One gem in particular from these bouts was the introduction of Takanosho as hailing from Minatogawa-beya, which you can hopefully hear in the tweet embedded below. See our previous news brief about Takakeisho becoming master.

Terunofuji performed his final dohyo-iri with Hoshoryu as sword-bearer and Onosato as dew-sweeper. As Josh pointed out in the comments, ex-Satonofuji was on hand to help get that rope ready. He’s not the only blast-from-the-past who attended the event.

Terunofuji’s 3-year-old son joined them on the dohyo wearing his own tsuna (Yokozuna rope belt) and kesho mawashi, held by Onosato. Check back in 20 years. That kid might have his own legit belt.

Now, the main event was obviously the haircut. A stream of supporters, celebrities, and sumo elite (including Hakuho) took their turns cutting Terunofuji’s topknot. Shunba, Terunofuji’s former tsukebito took his turn, as did Takarafuji, and the current crop of Isegahama sekitori. Here, though, we have Miyagino-oyakata taking the final snips.

When all was said and done, we got to see the obligatory picture of okamisan adjusting Terunofuji’s — excuse me — Isegahama-oyakata’s tie.

Then, they all partied like it was 1899.

That’s it for this weekend but join us next weekend for news about the NHK Charity Sumo event and the One Day Tournament. This one day tournament used to be known as the FUJI TV tournament but since last year’s Fuji TV scandal, it looks like Fuji TV is not aligned with it anymore. Nevertheless, if you’re in Japan and think you missed all of the sumo action after the end of Hatsu, take heart. You may still have an opportunity to attend these events or other sumo-related tours and events.

Winter News Update #2

Andy Jungyo (巡業), Sumo Topics ,

The Winter Tour started Sunday in Isahaya, Nagasaki, the orange point in the map above. Isahaya is famous for its oysters, mikan oranges, picturesque Megane-bashi, and fruit-shaped bus shelters. It’s the first stop of a 22-leg tour, stretching from Nagasaki back to the Tokyo region. It also gets to be the location of Aonishiki’s first bout as Ozeki, introduced here fighting against Oho. I love seeing a good amount of kensho banners on these tours.

For those who are new to sumo, these tours are generally one-day promotional exhibition “tournaments”. The bouts are a bit less lively than what was seen in London. Face it, no one’s going to go all out But they’re a great way for the Sumo Association and the wrestlers to get out to local communities and connect with fans who otherwise would not be able to enjoy a tournament. For a bit more detail about Jungyo based on my experience last year in Tachihi, click here.

The program for today’s show is above, from the Sumo Association’s Twitter account. But for a quick rundown, the day starts at 9am with keiko (or practice). The lower rankers warm up first, with the top division wrestlers later. Keep in mind this is not the entire crew. This is not all 500-600 wrestlers. We have the top division wrestlers, a few from Juryo, and their tsukebito. There are lower division bouts and then a few events that we don’t see during regular tournaments, such as the jinku singing, the hair-dressing demonstration, the Yokozuna belt-tying demonstration, the shokkiri comedy routine, and the taiko drumming. Looks like there was a good crowd for the show today.

This all leads up to the main event: the terrorising of local children. It is said those with the healthiest lungs will go on to be the most successful in life. No, they don’t say that. I’m making that up. But wow, this kid has some pipes. And Tamawashi has the patience of a 40-year-old father. The sekitori dohyo-iri is followed by the Yokozuna dohyo-iri and then the top division bouts, closing with the bow ceremony. Then the guys do a mad dash for the tour bus so they can head to the next venue.

Frankly, these tours are also great ways for me to learn more about Japan and add to a growing list of places that I want to visit. I will probably not be able to chronicle each and every stop this winter but I hope to show a few more.