Yokozuna
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- "Yokozuna" was also the ring name for professional wrestler Rodney Anoa'i.
Yokozuna (横綱 yokozuna?) is the highest rank in sumo wrestling. The name comes from the most visible symbol of their rank, the wide (yoko) rope (tsuna) worn around the waist. The rope bears a marked similarity to the Shinto shimenawa rope often attached to torii temple gates and sacred trees, and like them serves to purify and mark off its content. The rope, which may weigh up to 20 kilograms, is not used during the matches themselves, but is worn during the yokozuna's dohyo-iri ring entrance ceremony.
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[edit] History
The birth of the rank of yokozuna is unclear, and there are two competing legends. According to one, a 9th-century wrestler named Hajikami tied a shimenawa around his waist as a handicap and dared any to touch it, creating sumo as we know it in the process. According to the other, legendary wrestler Akashi Shiganosuke tied the shimenawa around his waist in 1630 as a sign of respect when visiting the Emperor, and was posthumously awarded the title for the first time. There is little supporting evidence for either theory — in fact, it is not even certain that Akashi was a historical figure — but it is known that by 1789, yokozuna starting from Tanikaze Kajinosuke were depicted in ukiyo-e prints as wearing the shimenawa.
Prior to the Meiji Era, the title Yokozuna was conferred on Ozeki (currently the second highest rank) who performed sumo in front of the Shogun. This privilege was more often determined by a wrestler's patron having sufficient influence rather than purely on the ability and dignity of the wrestler. Thus there are a number of early wrestlers who were, by modern standards, Yokozuna in name only. Furthermore the right to award a wrestler a yokozuna licence was a hereditary privilege of one family. In these early days Yokozuna was also not regarded as a separate rank in the listings, but as an Ozeki with special dispensation to perform his own ring entering ceremony.
[edit] Criteria for promotion
In modern sumo, the qualifications that an Ozeki must satisfy to be promoted are that he has enough power, skill and dignity/grace (品格 hinkaku) to qualify. There are no absolute criteria, nor is there a set quota: there have been periods with no wrestlers at yokozuna rank, and there have been periods with up to four simultaneously.
The power and skill aspects are usually considered with reference to recent tournament performance. The de facto standard is to win two consecutive championships as Ozeki or an equivalent performance. In the case where the "equivalent performance" criterion is used the wrestler's record over the previous three tournaments is taken into account with an expectation at least one tournament victory and two runner up performances, with none of the three records falling below twelve wins. Thus a consistent high level of performance is required. Winning two tournaments with a poor performance between them is not usually sufficient. The rules are not set in stone and hence the Yokozuna Promotion Council and Sumo Association can interpret the criteria more leniently or strictly and also take other factors, such as total number of tournament victories, and the quality of the wins and whether the losses show any bad vulnerabilities in reaching their conclusion.
The issue of hinkaku is more contentious, as dignity and grace are essentially subjective issues. For example ozeki Konishiki, in particular, was felt by many to be unfairly kept from yokozuna status due to his foreignness, and many Sumo Association members even openly said that gaijin could never achieve the hinkaku needed to be a yokozuna. In the case of Konishiki, other issues such as his weight were also cited. Other wrestlers in the past have also been held back. For example Chiyonoyama in the 1950s was not immediately promoted due to his relative youth despite winning consecutive tournaments, although he later achieved the top rank.
The debate concerning foreigners having the dignity to be a Yokozuna was finally laid to rest on January 27, 1993, when ozeki Akebono was formally promoted to yokozuna after only 8 months as an Ozeki. Since then two other overseas wrestlers have also achieved Sumo's ultimate rank: Musashimaru and Asashoryu.
[edit] Becoming a yokozuna
It is expected that a Yokozuna will be very heavy, with the average weight of the last 10 Yokozunas being approximately 400lbs. In competition in each tournament for the championship he can never be relegated. A yokozuna is expected to retire if he is no longer able to compete at the peak of the sport. As a result of this, the system for promotion is quite strict.
Elevation to yokozuna rank is a multi-stage process. After a tournament, the Yokozuna Deliberation Council, a body of "lay people" (that is, not former sumo wrestlers) who are appointed by the Japan Sumo Association to provide an independent quality control on Yokozuna promotion, meet and discuss the performance of the top-ranked wrestlers. Usually at the instigation of the Japan Sumo Association they can make a recommendation that a particular Ozeki-ranked wrestler has the necessary attributes to be promoted. Their recommendation is then passed to the Judging division and then the Board of Directors of the Sumo Association who make the final decision.
If a wrestler is deemed to have met the criteria then he will be formally visited in his training stable by a member of the Sumo Association Board of Directors who will formally give him the news. In the following days a yokozuna hawser will then be made in his stable and he will practice the ring entrance ceremony with advice from a previous or current Yokozuna. Finally he will have his inaugural ceremonial ring entry ceremony which is always held at Meiji Jingu in Tokyo, which is usually completed within a couple of weeks of the tournament ending.
[edit] Ring entry ceremony
The formal birth of the rank from Tanikaze's time appears to have in part come from a desire to let the very best have a separate ring entry ceremony (dohyo-iri) from the remaining top division wrestlers. The dohyo-iri is a ceremonial presentation of all the top division wrestlers which is held prior to the competitive bouts of the day. The normal ceremony for top division wrestlers is to be introduced and form a circle around the wrestling ring (dohyo) wearing specially decorated heavy silk "aprons", called kesho mawashi. A brief symbolic "dance" is carried out before filing off to change into their fighting mawashi and prepare for their bouts.
A Yokozuna, however, is introduced after the lower ranked wrestlers and is flanked by two other top division wrestler "assistants". The "dewsweeper" or tsuyuharai precedes the Yokozuna, while the "sword bearer" or tachimochi follows him into the arena. The sword is a Japanese katana and symbolises the samurai status of the yokozuna. The tachimochi will always be the more highly ranked of the assisting wrestlers. As indicated above, during the ceremony the yokozuna will wear his tsuna around his waist. The ceremonial aprons of all three form a matching set.
Once in the ring the yokozuna takes centre stage and performs a much more complex ritual dance. The dance can take one of two forms, one of which the yokozuna usually chooses when he is first promoted. In addition to the slightly different routine the choice of the yokozuna's ritual can also be determined by the knot used to tie the rope around his waist. The currently more popular "Unryū" style has only one loop at the back, while the "Shiranui" style has two. The styles are named after two famous Yokozuna of the Edo period, although there is no historical proof that they actually carried out the dances that have been attributed to them. Indeed there are some scholars who believe that in fact the two concerned have had their ring entering rituals mixed up.
[edit] Noteworthy yokozuna
As of July 2005, there have been a grand total of 68 yokozuna, although formal recordkeeping only started with Tanikaze and Onogawa in 1789. A selected list:
- Hitachiyama (常陸山), one of the most valuable sumo wrestlers for building the Ryogoku Kokugikan. He had been nicknamed Kakusei (角聖).
- Tachiyama (太刀山), superstar of the Meiji era
- Tochigiyama (栃木山), pioneer of the modern sumo.
- Futabayama (双葉山), the dominant wrestler of the late 1930's to 1940's. Obtained 12 tournament victories in a period when there were only 2 (rather than the current six) tournaments per year.
- Taihō (大鵬), reckoned by many to be the greatest sumo wrestler of the post war period, with a record 32 tournament victories
- Chiyonofuji (千代の富士), the dominant wrestler until his retirement in 1991, with one tournament victory less than Taihō
- Kitanoumi (北の湖), not far behind either in terms of ability. He achieved 24 tournament victories.
- Akebono (曙), first non-Japanese yokozuna (from Hawaii, United States)
- Takanohana (貴乃花) and Wakanohana (若乃花) were the first brothers to become yokozuna at the same time, and they were rivals of their contemporary Akebono.
There is currently only one active yokozuna:
[edit] Trivia
- Whereas most North American professional wrestling fans only know the "Yokozuna" character played by Rodney Anoai (who was neither Japanese nor an actual yokozuna, or sumotori of any rank), there are four actual yokozunas who turned to Western-style professional wrestling: Kinichi Azumafuji (1950s), Hiroshi Wajima (1984-1988), Koji Kitao (1990-1998) and Taro Akebono (since 2005).
