The Greatest Yokozuna (Sumo Wrestler) in History Retired

I've found Sumo tends to reveal a lot of cultural biases in people that I otherwise consider very worldly / educated etc. Even those that tend to adore Japanese culture.

I developed an interest in it while I was living in LA and super broke. I wanted to start following baseball again to feel a connection to the Bay Area which I was very homesick for but discovered how expensive following American sports was. I couldn't pay for a service like ESPN and pirating seemed to negate the point of being a fan.

By chance I discovered that we got NHK (Japanese public broadcast) for free in our apartment, and amongst it's shows were 30 minute summaries of Sumo tournaments that happen daily for 15 days every other month.

I started watching them with curiosity, but found that there was a poetic simplicity and complexity to the matches. They could last only a few seconds and every movement / gesture mattered immensely. There were no complex rules or props involved. Each pairing only had one match (no two out of three etc) wrestlers couldn't punch or kick each other and the first one on the clay or out of the ring lost. And there were no obnoxious advertisements or commercial distractions other than a bale of envelopes full of financial contributions handed to some wrestlers after winning.

The sport seemed to be respectful of my time and aesthetic sensibilities. Every part of it seemed to be artistically considered and hand-crafted with great care. And indeed most important items from the clay platform to the belts worn by the wrestlers are hand-crafted in largely the same way they have been for hundreds of years, often with deep roots in Shinto tradition.

In any case the sport has brought me a lot of joy over the past 5 years and has made me feel rooted to a broader culture of the pacific rim as many of the best wretlers are from outside Japan. I'm sad to see Hakuho retiring. He is the best Yokozuna to have ever lived by almost an order of magnitude and it is unlikely we will get to see another like him in our lifetimes or perhaps ever again.

hakuho's last tournament > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkNFbyfmKV8

history of sumo > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQSEW1NFRwo&t=193s

hakuho documentary > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcT5AtFa67k