ON A RECENT evening in an unassuming room in an unassuming gym in Peachtree City, Georgia, Katie Hardeman, a combat veteran with a blonde topknot (pictured below), was training America’s first generation of sumo wrestlers. For two hours she put her Black Dragon “boys”—mostly shirtless, middle-aged men built like gladiators—through tough exercises. Then she invited your correspondent to have a go, strapping her into a mawashi, the Japanese loincloth, and instructing her to charge headfirst into a man’s chest, palms
ON A RECENT evening in an unassuming room in an unassuming gym in Peachtree City, Georgia, Katie Hardeman, a combat veteran with a blonde topknot (pictured below), was training America’s first generation of sumo wrestlers. For two hours she put her Black Dragon “boys”—mostly shirtless, middle-aged men built like gladiators—through tough exercises. Then she invited your correspondent to have a go, strapping her into a mawashi, the Japanese loincloth, and instructing her to charge headfirst into a man’s chest, palms aiming for “tits and pits”. “There’s something electric about it,” Ms Hardeman says. “We’re trying to overcome the negative connotation in our country that sumo is just fat guys in diapers pushing each other.”
On October 10th the Sumo Championship League will hold its debut match in Austin, Texas. It is the first of its kind on this side of the Pacific. Fifty-seven wrestlers will compete in round-robin bouts until a winner is crowned to the sound of rumbling Japanese drums. A synthetic dohyo, the centre ring typically made of clay, was custom-made by a Los Angeles design firm that builds stages for Coachella and Taylor Swift. Contestants were chosen not just for their grappling prowess but for less expected traits, such as being “smiley, bubbly and uplifting” enough to nail the post-match interview.
Stuart Snyder, the entertainment guru behind it, was once chief operating officer at World Wrestling Entertainment, which for decades has staged smackdowns between theatrical fighters. After Mr Snyder saw cornhole and pillow-fighting go viral online, he decided fringe sports were having a moment—and American sumo had to be next. With $5m in hand, he is betting he can hook American families on a sport rooted in far-away traditions. “It’s going to catch a wave,” he predicts, almost giddy.
Because sumo has little footing outside Asia, many of the league’s aspiring stars are new to it. Jonithan “Jiva” Pilgrim was living at a Hare Krishna commune in North Carolina when he discovered sumo on YouTube. A former wrestler transformed by spiritual practice, he realised he “had no other nature than to be a warrior” and joined a club last year. He has gained weight on a calorie-dense vegetarian diet of whey shakes, tofu and ghee. His club-mate Dominus “Domzilla” Davis-Williams, the league’s heaviest wrestler at 450lbs (204kg), is in it for different reasons. An army brat who moved from city to city as a child, he found solace in American football. Sumo “felt familiar”. Now a 23-year-old amateur medallist, he says it is doing wonders for his “body positivity”.
Bringing sumo to America has been compared to serving sushi on Thanksgiving. But now that it’s here, the real debate is over how much to Americanise it, says George Ferris of the United States Sumo Federation. The sport’s combative style is a natural fit for a country that spends Saturday afternoons watching college men smash into each other. But some Japanese rituals may go over less well: authentic sumo has lots of ceremonial stomping and salt-throwing and bans women from the dohyo.
Ahead of the event in Austin, wrestlers are weighing whether to “go traditional” and wear just the mawashi, leaving their buttocks exposed, or sneak compression shorts underneath it. Mr Pilgrim chose the latter. He reckons the American public will swoon for sumo, “but it’s not ready for that much naked male body”.
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