There have been numerous revelations of illicit drug use among wrestlers, and there would be more if the JSA required testing for the use of performance enhancing drugs. In an age when pills and injections can markedly increase power and decrease recovery time, and in a sport where those qualities are cherished, the failure to test for PEDs reflects the depth of the JSA's "see no evil" philosophy.
Violence outside the ring is a persistent problem. There has been a steady stream of churlish and brutal behavior by sumo wrestlers partying in bars, restaurants and clubs, occasionally with consequences, as when Asashoryu was forced to retire after one tantrum too many. Usually the thuggery is covered up and glossed over by sumo elders and their adoring friends and fans — as it was at least once during the January tournament in Tokyo.
Violence also permeates life inside the country's 51 sumo stables. Extreme "hazing" is common, ostensibly to "toughen up" young wrestlers and to teach them to respect their elders. Some stable masters have used wooden swords and baseball bats to drive their messages home.
In 2007, a teenage trainee named Takashi Saito died after his stable master (Junichi Yamamoto) beat him with a beer bottle and a bat and then ordered senior wrestlers to continue this pedagogy of the body on their own. At first the cause of death was falsely reported as heart failure; the real cause was revealed only when the victims' father insisted on an autopsy. Yamamoto and three of his wrestlers denied wrongdoing, but all were eventually arrested and convicted. Yamamoto has been sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter; the others received suspended sentences.
Nonviolent but premature death is a fact of life for most retired wrestlers. Sumo is the only sport in the world where the rate of morbid obesity approaches 100 percent. The stress of lugging around scores or hundreds of extra pounds results in chronic health problems, from high blood pressure and diabetes to heart attacks and arthritis. Retired wrestlers have a life expectancy of 60 to 65 years, compared to almost 80 for the average Japanese male.
Sumo also fails to respect norms of equality. Women are excluded from many competitions and ceremonies. They are not even permitted to touch the "sacred" ring lest they pollute it with their two X chromosomes. When Osaka Gov. Fusae Ohta was asked to present a prize to the champion of the annual Kansai tournament, she was required to make the exchange on a walkway next to the ring or to send a male representative. She repeatedly asked to perform this role inside the ring, as her male counterparts do, but her requests were rejected because, the elders insisted that to change this tradition would dishonor their predecessors who had observed it.
This kind of specious reasoning is common in sumo's echo chamber — as it is with respect to foreigners' participation in the sport. Sumo's top ranks are now dominated by foreign wrestlers, and many elders regard this as a crisis. Last year, the JSA responded by announcing that it would limit sumo stables to one foreign wrestler each — a reduction from the two gaijin rule it established in the late 1990s. The same reform defined "foreign" as "foreign-born," which means that naturalized Japanese citizens are now counted as "foreign." That's back to the future with a vengeance. It may also be illegal.
The fan in me would like to see sumo survive. But another part of me recognizes that its problems are so severe and so pervasive that perhaps this dinosaur does not even deserve treatment. For sumo to endure in a form that is worth caring about, fundamental reform is essential. That won't be easy, but one thing is clear: The JSA has proven itself incapable of modernizing the sport on its own.
Meaningful reform will have to be pressed upon it from the outside, by those agents of government charged with overseeing the country's national sport, by the media, which have long been too cozy with the sport to call it properly to account, and by people like you and me, who must decide whether to watch something that, in its present form, is more farce than competition. Sumo has imperiled its own existence. It will take more than the familiar script to save it from extinction.
相撲は神道色を強く持つ。それが日本の国技として長く国家に守られて現在に到る。「古代から現代に至るまで皇室との縁は深い。(ウィキぺデア)」。八百長は日本の文化であると言う者さえいる。表では伝統と格式、その尊厳を豪語し、その中身は腐敗に簡単に染まり、長くそれを隠蔽できる構造をもつ。政治や経済や社会のあらゆる組織・団体運営もまた、伝統があればあるほど、その色を強く染めている。戦後の復興から産業経済のピークを迎え、そのバブルがはじけた昨今、国際的競争力が徐々に失われて行く日本の将来を暗示する大きな事件としてみると面白い。
*****
Saturday, April 9, 2011
JAPAN TIMES EDITORIAL
Sumo must clean up its act
The Japan Sumo Association on April 1 took disciplinary action against 21 wrestlers and two stable masters for their involvement in match-fixing. Nineteen wrestlers — six in the elite makuuchi division, eight in the second-tire juryo division and five in lower divisions — and one stable master were called on to retire, while one stable master and two wrestlers were banned from sumo activities for two years.
By April 5, 21 wrestlers and one stable master retired. Stable master Tanigawa refused to retire, saying he never fixed matches during his 14 years' career as a wrestler. He was fired April 6.
It is significant that the JSA, which had long denied charges of match-fixing, has finally admitted that it exists and has taken disciplinary actions against wrestlers and stable masters. Ultimately it had no choice as long-standing contention that match-fixing does not exist in the sumo world has been undermined by the investigation.
The match-fixing scandal surfaced about two months ago when text messages suggesting such activities were found on mobile phones by chance during a police investigation into illegal betting on pro baseball games by sumo wrestlers. A special investigation committee questioned wrestlers who played a central role in match-fixing and wrestlers who fought them on the ring. But it did not question all wrestlers, particularly those in the higher ranks. In this sense, the committee failed to unravel the whole picture of the scandal and its investigation remains incomplete.
Having seen the mass media reports, especially in weekly magazines, fans and others harbor strong suspicions that match-fixing is not a short-term problem involving only a few wrestlers, but rather a cancer that has been eating away at the sumo world for a long time.
Match-fixing is a betrayal to diligent wrestlers who devote themselves to fierce training every day, and to fans who expect to watch fact, not fiction. The JSA must strive to strengthen professionalism among wrestlers and adopt concrete measures that will help to prevent them from being lured into match-fixing.