Editorial
Welcome to the premier issue of SUMO SHIMPO.  If you are getting this, it’s because you gave us your name and address during the past two years.  Our plan is to cover both what’s going on in Grand Sumo in Japan and amateur sumo locally and around the world.  We hope to put it out six times a year, after each major basho in Japan.  If you would like to continue to receive SUMO SHIMPO, just join the Southern California Sumo Kyokai for five dollars a year.  Or, better yet, purchase two tickets to the 3^rd annual North American Sumo Championships at Hollywood Park Casino, in Inglewood, CA Sat. & Sun. June 26^th & 27^th.  Tickets are $10 with a portion of each ticket purchased from us going to the Kyokai.  Checks should be made out to Hollywood Park Casino.  Tickets can either be held for will call at the casino or mailed to you if you enclose a SSAE with your order.  The individual championships will be held on Saturday and the team championships on Sunday.  There will be teams and individuals representing Canada, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the USA.  There will also be a guest team from Japan.  Most importantly, the Southern California Sumo Kyokai will once again be represented!

Finally, a word of thanks to Mr. Robert Terry for helping me with the masthead for SUMO SHIMPO.

Tonkatsu
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Sumo’s ruling board promotes Hawaii’s second Yokozuna to the exalted rank.
By Pete Pichaske, Phillips News service (Originally published in the 5/25/99 Honolulu Star-Bulletin)

TOKYO, May 26 (Kyoto) – The Japan Sumo Association formally decided today to promote ozeki Musashimaru, the winner of the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament, to sumo’s highest rank of yokozuna.

Officials said JSA executives made the decision at a meeting to discuss the rankings for the Nagoya tournament in July.

The JSA’s formal approval of Musashimaru’s promotion followed a recommendation made yesterday by the Yokozuna Deliberation Council, an advisory body to the JSA.

Musashimaru, Waianae’s Fiamalu Penitani, assured himself of the promotion to become the 67^th yokozuna, or Grand Cmapion, of Japan’s ages-old sport after winning his second straight championship by beating yokozuna Akebono, Waimanolo’s Chad Rowan, in the Tokyo tourney finale Sunday to finish the Summer Grand Sumo tournament with a 13-2 won-loss record.

Musashimaru, 28, is the second Hawaii-born yokozuna, after Akebono, who has occupied the top rank since the March tourney in 1993.

Musashimaru’s triumphs at the Osaka spring meet in March and this time out in Tokyo match a council requirement that yokozuna candidates win two straight tournaments as ozeki.

Musashimaru joins Akebono, Wakanahana and Wakanahana’s younger brother Takanohana as yokozuna in Nagoya in July, making it the first grand sumo tournament in eight years to feature four grand champions.  It took Musashimaru 59 tournaments since his professional debut in September 1989 to attain yokozuna rank.
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Sumo Digest Update
By Tonkatsu (Harry Dudrow)

In case you have lost track of SUMO DIGEST, they are on KRCA channel 62 at 11:30pm, during major tournaments in Japan.  KRCA is an on air station, you do not need cable to get it.  The next tournament, the Nagoya Basho, starts July 5^th, at 11:30pm.

Steve Sameshima tells us that he hopes to expand to other markets and to have English commentary in the near future.  I have mixed feelings about English.  On the one hand, it would be nice to know more about what is going on, on the other hand the English language commentators on ESPN frequently have such atrocious pronunciation of Japanese names.  It could be like watching a good samurai movie dubbed into English, yuk!  I will be happy if they just bring back the graphics of the home city, heya, and the winning technique.  
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Foreign Rikishi Take Majority of Yusho in Tokyo
By Yukikaze (Jim Lowerre)

With the impact of a 7.0+ earthquake, the 1999 Natsu Basho has concluded with non-native rikishi taking championships in four of professional sumo’s six divisions.

At the top of the list, ozeki MUSASHIMARU (Fiamalu Penitani) took the Makuuchi Division – and the Emperor’s Cup – in hand for the second consecutive tournament and the fifth time overall.  The 490-pound Musashigawa heya-gashira overcame early jitters and a determined senshuraku effort by fellow-Hawaiian AKEBONO to post a 13-2 record.  After the tournament the Yokozuna Promotion Council voted to elevate MUSASHIMARU to the yokozuna rank.  In making their vote they noted his string of more than fifty consecutive kachi-koshi basho, and that he had won the yusho twice in a row – an event which had triggered promotion for the other three currently active yokozuna.  As of this writing the Nihon Sumo Kyokai has approved the recommendation.  The banzuke for the Nagoya Basho will show four active yokozuna for the first time since CHIYONOFUJI, HOKUTOUMI, ONOKUNI, and ASAHIFUJI dominated the rankings in the early 1990s.

Makushita 9-E KAISHINZAN (Henry Armstrong Miller) took that division’s yusho with a 7-0 record.  With three rikishi due to fall out of sekitori ranks due to poor performance, the former football player from St. Louis should return to Juryo in July, where he fought for two consecutive basho under the shikona SENTORYU.  KAISHINZAN’s Korean stablemate KAIHAKUZAN (Baek Yoongi), who entered professional sumo this past March, took the Jonokuchi champrionship with a 7-0 record and will be ranked in Jonidan for the Nagoya tournament.  Coupled with the 12-3 jun-yusho and Kanto-Sho performance of sekiwake KAIO, Tomozuna-Beya’s men gave excellent account of themselves this time out.

To round out the foreign performance, Wakamatsu-beya’s ASASHORYU (Dolgorsuren Dagvadorj) took the Jonidan championship with a 7-0 record.  The 18 year old Mongolian, who has only been in professional sumo since January, will move up to Sandanme in July.

The Juryo yusho was taken by Irumagawa-beya’s OTSUKASA (Nobuhide Ouchi), who posted an 11-4 record at the 6-E ranking.  He will move up to the top end of the Juryo rankings, but does not figure to be promoted to Makuuchi.  (WAKANOYAMA, who posted a 10-5 mark at J1-W, figures to get that promotion.)  TAKEKAGI (Hajime Takegaki) of Tatsutagawa-beya won Sandanme honors with a 7-0 record and will be ranked in Makushita at Nagoya.
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Japanese-American Prepares for North American Championship
By Tonkatsu (Harry Dudrow)

One of the initial goals of the Southern California Sumo Kyokai was to revive interest in sumo in the Japanese American community in California.  This has proven to be one of our hardest tasks.  To date, only one ten year old boy has participated in our program, although we have had some Japanese from Japan.  Generally, when I meet a big young Japanese American and mention sumo to him, all I get is a look of amusement,  This is about to change, at least in one case.

A few months ago someone who had contacted me on the Internet told me about a big Japanese American in Northern California.  His name is Marcus Murakami.  He lives in Fairfield in Norther California.  He is 21 years old, 6’ 3” tall and weighs 550 pounds.  His father is a Sansei and his mother is Norwegian.  Marcus, whom we have given the unofficial shikona of KITANOYAMA, is training under the tutelage of Mr. Ernie Hunt, of Suisen, a long time amateur sumotori.  If Marcus does compete in the North American Championships, it will be, to our knowledge, the first time since before the war that a California Japanese-American has competed in a major tournament.
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