The two week sumo aki basho tournament ended this weekend and my oh my it was a bit of a doozy. The race for the trophy was wide open as the 4th best Yokozuna in the history of the sport, Asashoryu, was forced to sit this one out due to Japan's proclivity for "hammering down the nail that stands out" as well as good old fashion racism. This meant that all bets were off as everyone was assured that they would have at least one more win under their belts with Asashoryu gone and that the people just underneath him had a very good opportunity handed to them. So who won the tournament?

Hakuho the other mongolian Yokozuna (sorry, currently no Japanese wrestlers are good enough to make Yokozuna). Despite an initial stumble by losing on the first day :roll: , Hakuho managed to hold on and only lost one other match during the entire 15 day tournament to capture the cup. This was a great achievement as he was a Dai-Yokozuna (1st appearance as a Yokozuna) and he chose the dreaded Shiranui type for his Dohyo-iri (ring entering ceremony) which is generally considered bad luck and nobody has done this for quite a while (in fact the last Yokozuna who chose that type never won a single tournament). So hurrah for Hakuho and all that! What did our Yokozuna win?

The GIANT Emperor's cup! :shock: Humorously, a very small older man from the sumo committee is typically giving the cup away and they always like to watch him attempt to hand the cup over to the winner and then everyone rushes in to catch him before he is crushed under the weight of the mighty cup. Oh what kidders those sumo folk are...

Yay! Ummm...papers?! Well it's always nice to have something that you can frame and put on the wall for when you're old and people think you never accomplished anything in your life I suppose.

The mongolian "Manly Cup" and no I'm not kidding about the name. Mongolian men are very big on being manly and they have some pretty rough competitions to prove their manliness level all the time in ye olde Mongolia.

Now we're talking! A Djinni in modern Japan of all places! Seriously though, sumo has a lot of supporters from around the world and the handing out of trophies takes about 40 minutes or so. Whoof! That's a lot of hardware. I wonder if any big ol' conglomerates have their hand in any of these sumo goings on?

Hooray! The Americans have their hands all up in that business fo' sho! Gazing upon this real life serious trophy for a couple weeks of very hard work makes all those strange video game racing trophies seem not so strange now eh?

Lastly, there's the traditional parade -- in a new car -- as they ride their way all the way home taking all the winning banners with them to bling up their heya (wrestling stable). Yes indeed, there will be much drinking tonight my friends.

The crown prince of Japan Naruhito and his wife were in attendance during the closing days of the tournament as was their precious daughter the princess Aiko who is already a very big sumo fan. Seriously, she's just 6 years old but if you ask her about the wrestlers she can tell what stable they come from and what their favorite techniques are. Her favorite wrestler is the newly promoted Ozeki Kotomitsuki about whom many people were nervous would lose the match during her attendance and thus put the princess in a serious funk. Luckily for all Kotomitsuki triumphed and the princess was saved and all was well in the kingdom of Japan -- well at least in the world of sumo.

There was a rather odd occurrence during the middle of tournament in which a woman suddenly attempted to ascend the dohyo and get into the ring with a big pile of papers clutched to her chest. One of the YDC (Yokozuna Deliberation Council) members managed to hook her foot and the sumo wrestler Takamisakari (who rather ironically for this particular situation is in actuality known as ROBOCOP due to his stiff, awkward, robot-like movements) sprang into action and apprehended the ne'er do well.

This is actually a bigger deal then you may realize as women are not allowed up on the dohyo for those pesky old time spiritual and religious reasons. Remember, Sumo is not just a sport, it's a way of life and its many traditions are bound up in the trappings of ceremonial spiritual rites that are so old that many origins of these traditions are lost to time. So many times, if you were to ask me "Why do the wrestlers throw salt in the ring before they wrestle daemon?" I would have to sadly inform you that nobody actually knows this. Anyways, the lady in question just had a bunch of strange doodles on her papers and she was quite obviously mentally unstable but harmless so the sumo gang decided not to prosecute her and the news folks politely blurred her face to save her family any embarassment.

Another fun odd thing that happened was the mongolian wrestler Ama (I know, Mongolians are all over the place in sumo buddy boy) body slamming up and coming new hot japanese wrestler named Goeido. Now Ama is a very technical wrestler who is very light as far as body weight goes. He has put on some weight over the years but it's not been easy for him and so he has had to struggle with wrestling all the big boys with nothing but pure skill. Goeido is himself a technical wrestler although not on quite the level as Ama, and this was his first time in the big leagues. He and Ama had at each other with very quick grip reversals and body twists and suddenly Ama found himself behind Goeido. Typically a wrestler just pushes the other guy out when he gets in this position but Ama just hesitated, found his grip and...

What is he...? Oh no it's...

...time to feel a lot of sudden pain Goeido!

Ama just casually walked away immediately as if nothing had happened leaving a rather stunned sumo wrestler on the ground as well as a rather stunned audience. The announcer immediately commented that the move was "Very Asashoryu like". Ama just wanted to let the new kid know that you can't just come up from the minor leagues and expect to roll over the upper echelon like he had been doing for most of the tournament. Welcome to the big leagues kid -- if you get lazy you're going to get hurt.

It was a very entertaining tournament despite the aforementioned absence of Asashoryu but now Daemon's are sad because he has to wait another two months until the next one happens. At least Adult Swim started showing Cowboy Bebop again so I have something to watch late at night and not feel so sad.