They are Hawaii's Yokozuna

Placed in: playja, tomos, culos,

Tif spotted him. Perhaps her encyclopedic knowledge of sports helped her pick his face out of the many people in official jackets milling around the ring. They were all pretty big, possibly all ex-sumo wrestlers.

We had pulled up some boards and I was hanging from bars under the box seats to retrieve some fallen items (4 square feet of cushion, maybe 10 of person, something's gotta give) while she'd gone down to ringside to search the ground way under. Just as she came running back with a, "Hey guys, I think that's Musashimaru" the man she was pointing to left the ring area. We SPRINTED down to catch him at the wrestler's exit. Gary was the bold one with, "Excuse me, Musashimaru? We're from Hawaii, could we take a picture with you?" I wonder how many times he hears that, but he was really nice and even shook all our hands.

He was called the most successful foreign born wrestler ever at his retirement ceremony in October of last year. He has won more than 700 bouts and hold the record for most consecutive successful tournaments. Apparently he resembles Saigo Takamori, a warlord from Kagoshima who was a key player in the Meiji Restoration and served as the historical basis for The Last Samurai (played by Watanabe Ken). But I was too up on excitement to register anything except the fact that he is really, really big. And then he was gone. We jumped around like delirious caffeine-mad 12-year-olds for a while. I still get excited thinking about it.

Placed in: [ Playing In Japan
] [ Good Times, Great People
] [ Cultural Osmosis ]