The Osaka Mainichi and Tokyo Nichi Nichi, Thursday 13th March
1941 (Page 3)
15-Year Old Osaka Boy Weighs 217 lbs; To Be Sumo Wrestler
- And Champ
To Become Wrestler
" I love sumo better than my rice," - that is the statement
of the 217 pound 15 year od wonder boy of Osaka, Kaoru Morishita, who will
soon enter the Nishogaseki club, gymnasium of Sumo wrestlers, to become
a wrestler himself. Whether or not he prefers sumo, he is said to
eat five large bowls of rice at each meal.
He stands more than five feet seven inches tall
and has won the championship for the last several years in the Osaka children's
sumo tournament.
His home is a restaurant at 49 Daishinbashi-suji
4-chome, Kita-ku, Osaka. He is the second son of the proprietor, Kusaburo
Morishita.
His parents are both of average size, his father
measuring but five feet two inches. They are surprised that their child,
who weighed less than eight pounds at birth should have grown up to be
the giant that he is.
He went to kindergarten, but quit because his size
made visitors believe that he was the office boy of the school. Next he
attended the Seibi primary school where, when he was in the fourth grade,
he was discovered by the late champion, Tamanishiki, and was asked to come
to his gymnasium upon graduation. The champion on his death bed three years
ago is said to have regretted that he could not have the pleasure of training
young Morishita.
The former supporters of champion Tamanishiki are
backing the project of training the boy. He will soon go through the professional
naming ceremony at Kiyoshi-kojin, on the Osaka-Takarazuka line.
"I love wrestling better than my rice and I shall
study hard to become just as great a wrestler as my friend, Tamanishiki,
who died," the boy told a reporter of this paper.
