Onishiki has just won the national wrestling tournament in Japan. This is one big place were wrestling bouts are not faked. There are three tournaments year, one each four months. The champion must compete each time. Champions of east and west meet. In the last tournament Onishiki beat nine rivals on nine successive days. He is a “small wrestler” for Japan, weighing only 300 pounds, and weighed more than 400 pounds.
    Japanese wrestlers train from boyhood, eating certain foods and living according to certain rules to grow big and heavy. They train from 3 o'clock in the morning until breakfast time, rest through the day, start early in the evening, and train until about 10 p. m.
     And their training is rough stuff. As butting is a great part of their wrestling, they butt their heads, against posts two feet thick to harden the skulls and become accustomed to receiving blows without losing consciousness. They also run about twenty feet and throw themselves, chest first, against the posts, until they are hard and tough all over. They do this every day for years.
    In wrestling they sometimes start from opposite sides of the ring and rush together, meeting head on, withdraw, and do it over again until one becomes dazed and weakened. A man who touches anything but his feet to the ground or is pushed out of the circle loses.
    Japanese wrestling championships sometimes draw 500,000 people – the greatest crowds drawn by any sporting event in the world. A small attendance is about 200,000. For each tournament a building is erected, to be torn down when the tournament is over.