Sumo Wrestling, Austian Open, April 2005

Very funny. They were mildly impressed with my rugby background, but rightly amused and confused by Colin’s sporting background of tennis and marathon running. I attempted to impart some of Mickey’s wisdom about the essential similarities between rugby and sumo, glossing over the fact that I wasn’t a prop forward- whose actions I mimed in the hotel bar- but actually a scrum-half, a position normally occupied by the puniest player on the pitch.

Next morning we arrived at the sports hall already exhausted. It had taken half an hour of homoerotic puffing and panting to have us both tightly wound into our Mawashis. The Mawashi is as old as sumo itself- a tradition that goes back two thousand years. Eight metres of very tough, stiff cotton has to be wound tightly around the most sensitive body parts. If your Mawashi comes loose during a bout you are automatically disqualified, though personally I feel that’s preferable to the alternative, which is to have some hairy wrestler secure it tightly by pulling it so far up between your legs that you feel a lump in your throat.

Everybody weighed in together, so the Ireland team spent an anxious few minutes assessing who we would meet in the Lightweight division. A mean-looking Bulgarian with a black eye and enormous shoulders was prowling around like a gorilla. His name was Nikolay Nikolov. He looked like he was on day release from an asylum. In fact, all the Bulgarians looked like that. Six fighters, and not one smile.

As I was stepping off the scales, Alfred Glira, the General Secretary of the Austrian Sumo Association, ticked my name off his list and then asked if I was fighting in the Open division. Thinking this was another of their jibes about my slight build, I responded with a jaunty, “Yeah, of course, I’ll take you all on.” Nobody laughed. Apparently it is traditional in sumo for every fighter to wrestle in their own weight category and then also enter the Open category to fight above their weight and ‘learn more about the sport’. Great.

The Lightweight division was split into two pools with every wrestler fighting everyone else in a round-robin format. Debutants Ireland were anxious to avoid any encounters with the Bulgarians, the bad boys of European Sumo. Colin was therefore horrified to learn that he would be fighting Nikolay Nikolov first, he of the black eye and powerful shoulders.

Nikolay smirked as he walked to the stage. Taking their places at opposite ends of the ring, or ‘Dohjo’, the Bulgarian and the Irishman bowed to each other in the traditional sign of respect, though this was surely more of a tongue-in-cheek gesture on the part of Nikolay.

As soon as the fists of each wrestler touch the ground, the referee gives the command to fight. Colin tried a bit of psychology by delaying the drop of his fists, but that only delayed the inevitable. Sumo wrestling looks just like a big pushing match but most European sumos have a judo or wrestling background which means they are well versed in close combat and much more adept at “using your body as a pivot” as Mickey had advised. About ten seconds into his clash with Nikolay, Colin was spinning through the air, out of the Dohjo and off the back of the stage. He then suffered the ignominy of having to climb back up on stage for the judge’s official decision. Nikolay bowed and Colin exited stage right, a little more gracefully this time.

His next fight, against an Austrian called Rupert Brandrauer, lasted a little longer but came to an even more painful end, as Rupert and he both went crashing out of the ring and landed on Colin’s back, which he actually broke a few years earlier in a wind-surfing accident. Colin hit the deck first, so Rupert was awarded the win despite the intervention of a drunken Hungarian judge who had earlier taken a shine to Sumo Ireland and invited us to Budapest for elite sumo training sessions.

I was up next and thought I stood a slightly better chance, having taken my training with Mickey a little more seriously than Colin did. I was heavier, stronger, and determined to restore the credibility of Sumo Ireland. Charging forward like a mad man I hurtled into Dimitar Dimitrov of Bulgaria and had him perilously close to the edge of the ring. I could feel victory, but seconds later I felt the canvas, as a swift Bulgarian judo move dumped me on my arse and lost me the bout. Touching the canvas with any part of the body other than the feet loses the bout.

“Not a bad start,” complemented Siegfreid Rabbe, Vice-President of the German National Sumo Club. “But you need more control. For sumo you must be strong here,” he said, pointing to his bicep, “and here”, pointing to his head. “You are too hectic- you need to be calmer. You must control your opponent. Zat one was for learning. But you have ze power.”

I have the power! I felt like an Irish He-man, charged with defending the honour of Ireland’s sumo Castle Grayskull. I had to face Dimitar again in the Open category, a lucky escape really as it could have been a wrestler of any weight. I lost again, once more out-wrestled with victory in my sights. Colin somehow received a bye into the second round, where he was to meet a Hungarian middleweight. The Hungarian didn’t show, and Colin was awarded a walkover- Sumo Ireland’s first victory in international sumo. The Irish celebrated with typical restraint, prompting a warning for Colin from the judges. “Colin- serious. Serious,” they warned as he danced around the ring, pulling muscle-man poses for the delighted crowd. Siegfried pronounced him the ‘Eddie the Eagle of Sumo’.

Of course there was a downside to his epic, historic victory. That second round ‘win’ meant he progressed to the quarter-finals- the only lightweight wrestler to do so. He was drawn against a twenty-two stone Polish fighter, and the crowd edged closer, sensing blood. Siegfried’s advice was for Colin to keep moving, using the Pole’s weight against him. Colin’s interpretation of that was an Irish jig around the ring. In a circle of eight metres diameter however, you can run but you can’t hide. Colin was soon flying through the air again; though this time he was saved from going off the edge of the stage when the Pole grabbed him by the ankle and hauled him back in like a fish on a line.

That ended Ireland’s involvement in their first ever international sumo event, but it’s only the beginning of the sport here. Osaka hosts this year’s World Amateur Championships in October, and with a beefier squad of ‘sumo paddies’, Sumo Ireland hopes to take that tournament by storm. And back home, surely it’s no coincidence that the ban on foreign sports at Croke Park was lifted the same year as the formation of Sumo Ireland? Watch this space…
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© 2006 No Prior Experience