The Olean Evening Times, Friday 23rd March 1923 (Page
6)
Famed Jap Wrestler Is Coming to U.S. to Teach Us and
Learn Our Style
Tokio, March 23. - The United States is soon to see
exhibitions of the great Japanese national sport of sumo and soon, also,
sumo wrestlers are to visit the United States to learn the principles of
catch-as-catch-can wrestling and boxing in order to bring the knowledge
back to Japan and spread among the athletes of the rising generation. This
is the dual object of Onishiki, former grand champion in the art of the
sumo, who has recently retired from the ring and who expects to sail for
America in May with a following of sumo wrestlers.
Was Popular Idol
Onishiki, who for years has been one of the popular
idols of that section of Japan which has not turned from sumo to baseball,
is busily engaged with the business of learning the English language and
just as soon as he feels that he can speak well enough to (couple
of words illegible) in Broadway he expects to sail. Five sumo
wrestlers who rank about midway in the national association plan to accommodate
him.
Onishiki's principal object is to learn catch-as-catch-can
wrestling and boxing that he may return to teach those sports here. At
the same time, however, he proposes to give Americans its first taste of
sumo in exhibitions in the leading cities of the United States. The project
is backed by a number of loyal supporters of the former wrestler, the principal
are being Baron Furukawa, head of the Furukawa syndicate, one of five big
companies in Japan.
Withdrew from Ring
This trip of the former grand champion is possible by
Onishiki's voluntary withdrawal from the ring, in January, the eve of the
semi-annual Tokio tournament brought a strike among the younger wrestlers
of the association, and Onishiki attempted to mediate. His efforts were
unsuccessful - it took the Tokio police chief to settle the dispute - and
thereupon one of the rings promising men in the sport resorted to the true
Japanese course of procedure which should follow. He resigned from the
wrestlers association - assumed responsibility - and quit the recognized
ring for all time. The was signified by the clipping of the long locks
which distinguished sumo wrestlers from other Japanese.
Popular Sport
A little has been written of sumo in America, so just
a word as to what Americans may expect to see when Onishiki learns to speak
English. Prior to the advent of baseball, sumo was in Japan what baseball
has been for many years in the United States. Everybody went; everybody
was well versed in the sport, and everybody got all worked up about the
semi-annual tournament in Tokio, just as Americans get all worked
up about the world series. Times are changing, though, for popular interest
in sumo is on the decline. Strength - pure bull strength such as formerly
made a football player - makes a sumo wrestler. Onishiki, who is just 29
years old is 5 feet 6 inches in height and weighs 289 pounds - a very large
man for a Japanese, but a sumo man must be extraordinarily large to succeed.
When a match is held a circle about 10 feet in diameter is drawn, and the
object is for one wrestler to push the other out of the ring by one method
or another. They maneuver for 20 minutes maybe, then clinch, grapple and
struggle about the ring. Finally one goes down, or is merely pushed across
the white line.