Sumo has been around for 1,500 years, but it took until this weekend for the ancient Japanese sport to make its way to the UAE.
Most sports fans would not have even a basic knowledge of sumo. However, anyone of a certain age will surely be aware of Yokozuna and Rikishi from the world of WWE wrestling.
Well, those were not just fictional names plucked out of thin air – they are actual titles.
Professional sumo wrestlers in Japan are called rikishi, and the greatest among them rise to the highest rank in the sport – yokozuna.
That, and many other fascinating aspects of the Oriental sport will be introduced to a UAE audience this weekend, when Saturday's All-Star Sumo Competition – the first ever professional sumo tournament in the emirates – lands at Space42 Arena.
Nine elite wrestlers from Japan, Mongolia and Egypt (yes, Egypt) compete in 36 bouts in the capital, with fans set to witness the raw power of wrestling ensconced by elaborate pre-bout rituals and ceremonies.
Ichi is the most decorated wrestler in the competition. He spent a decade in Japan’s professional system and even won the Emperor’s Cup – the highest prize in Japanese professional sumo.
Also in the ring, or dohyo, is Hiroki, the heaviest wrestler in the line-up at 250kg and a star in his own right. Hiroki even has experience on the big screen in projects like Sanctuary on Netflix and John Wick: Chapter 4.
The Arab world is proudly represented by Egypt’s Ramy El Gazar, a 10-time national champion and also a US Sumo Open winner.
Ramy was an experienced judoka who moved into sumo and has taken it upon himself to spread the word – especially in the Arab region.
Ramy has close to a million followers on social media and is an avid cook, specialising in Egyptian cuisine. He is also a professional animator in the US. For him, the intricacies and history of sumo need to be told, although he himself stumbled into the sport by chance.
“I got into sumo by luck. I used to do judo before. When I tried sumo, I found it really rich … history and culture. So, I begin to study about sumo, training more, competing more,” Ramy told The National.
“I begin to do, on social media, sumo Arabic. To explain to Arab people about sumo. Because they have this idea about sumo, just fat guys. So I try to explain more about culture in those videos. Sumo means to be more respectful. If you win or lose, you will never find someone sharing [videos] or do a flip, or those kinds of stuff. So sumo for me means history, how to respect people, how to know you are really strong, more than people think.”
Respect and discipline are hard-wired into the DNA of the sport. Sumo wrestlers, therefore, are held in very high regard. Back in Japan, there is an annual festival where wrestlers get to hold babies and see who cries first – the belief being that babies who cry loudly are healthy.
Also, you need extreme discipline when your opponents routinely weigh around 200kg. One of the wrestlers, Fumiya, weighed in at 230kg despite being just 170cm tall. His width is greater than his height, yet he does a near perfect splits in his warm-up.
During a training session on Thursday, some wrestlers were reminded by the senior champions to tone it down and leave the all-out combat for Saturday. Ichi, the most decorated champion in the arena, commands the highest respect.
Sumo comes to Abu Dhabi – in pictures
The training sessions can last for hours and are brutal. The competitions even more so. For a wrestler, sumo never ends. They train round the year, five days a week, no matter what. Take Ramy for example.
“I live in USA. I wake up in the morning at three, do my lifting before I go to work. When I finish my work, I go to training,” he explained.
“You have to do everything. And if you are lucky, someone will help you with the food. But I like to cook it. So I have a schedule, a really, really tight schedule between work, training and preparing my food.
“[It is] 12 months of training. You just have every week, like, two days to rest. And train five days per week – once in the morning, then in evening.”
For Andrew Freund, director of All-Star Sumo and founder of USA Sumo, the sport is not only a grand spectacle but also teaches some very important lessons in life.
“Sumo teaches, of course, physical training. But also, respect, discipline, mental focus. So the aspects that you learn in sumo are things you can take into any field, into any sport, or any activity,” he said.
Terms like dohyo (sumo ring) and mawashi (wrestler’s belt) might take some time to enter the lexicon. But those lucky enough to see the action at the Space42 Arena would have no trouble in appreciating the lessons of sumo.
