sumo

Sumo in Japan is, in a word: huge. And I mean that literally. We had the cheapest seats in the house and these guys still resembled giants in the ring. Their obesity is deceiving though. It may look like the wrestlers eat their weight in cheeseburgers but they are marvelously skilled athletes with layers of muscle under all that jiggling flesh. When two wrestlers face off, the impact is something like 700 kg.





My favorite wrestler is the Bulgarian, Kotooshu. His birthday's the same as mine almost. Unlike the archetypical sumo body, his is tall and lean—well, leaner than most. He’s considered a lighter weight wrestler at 6ft, 8 inches tall and 312 pounds (the former yokozuna weighed 517 pounds at the same height) As far as I can tell (and I’m certainly no expert), one of his strategies is to cleverly dodge the oncoming brick shithouse, throwing his opponent off balance before taking him down. When it works, he looks like a matador taunting a bull with an invisible cape.