The Red Bulletin September 2019 (UK)

Sumo
“Sumo is the hardest
sport in the world.
It’s just brutal”
US hopeful Jose
Galindo takes a
tumble in the men’s
heavyweight final
or MMA fighter, but once you accept that isn’t going to happen,
this is a good step down.”
Feeling inspired a year ago, McKnight built a ring in his
backyard and has been practising with his roommates ever since.
This will be his first competition. “I love the traditional side,” he
adds. “In my mind, sumo is like American professional wrestling,
in that it’s a theatre show. It’s nice to see something where the
old ways are respected, even if they no longer make much sense.”
Heavyweight Jose Galindo, meanwhile, got into sumo after
watching Ulambayar body-slam an opponent on YouTube.
Born and raised in Utah and Los Angeles, Galindo used to play
semi-professional football. He’s now a chiropractor by trade
and appears for his weigh-in covered in red cupping bruises.
Like McKnight, this will be his first tournament. “I started
participating a month and a half ago,” he says. Now, having
filled in the entry form and paid the $30 fee, here he is. “It’s
been a baptism of fire,” Galindo admits.
Not every American competitor will be making their debut,
however. Heavyweight Kelly Gneiting is a legend in the sport
and has claimed the US national championship five times.
Gneiting, who weighs in at 197kg, originally got into the sport
after becoming too heavy to compete in Greco-Roman wrestling.
Now 48 and sporting a grey beard, he’s also the only competitor
here to have competed in the very first US Sumo Open in 2001.
“The highest truths are hidden from people,” he says,
philosophically. “One is that sumo is the hardest sport in the
world. It’s just brutal.” He recounts a story of how, during his
time in Tokyo in 2004, he was beating a champion when the
president of the sumo team gave his opponent a signal, which
led to Gneiting taking a palm to the eye. “You don’t do that in
sumo,” he says. “It felt like the kitchen sink had fallen on my
head. Things they wouldn’t stand for in the US or the UK, over
in Japan it’s normal.” He claims that the Japanese team didn’t
like a foreigner muscling in on their sport – an attitude that
Gneiting says was once widespread in professional sumo.
Over the years, though, he believes the Japanese have learned
to “release their baby”.
Andrew Freund is the founder and organiser of the US Sumo
Open and has the frantic energy of the sleep-deprived. Having
spent time in Japan in the early ’90s, Freund began putting on
sumo events in California as a hobby, before organising the
first US Open in 2001. The mix of competitors, he says, has
traditionally been 50 per cent American, 50 per cent foreign.
And 90 per cent of the time it’s the foreign competitors who end
up on the podium. “The US is a little behind the curve in terms
of international amateur sumo,” he shrugs.
Freund explains that the dichotomy between Japanese and
non-Japanese sumo is not really the focus of division in the
sport; the largest contrast is between professional and amateur
sumo. “Professional sumo in Japan is its own entity entirely,” he
says. “When you join pro sumo, you don’t have a vocation, you
don’t have a holiday, you don’t have your own place. You wanna
go somewhere for a day? You have to check with your coaches.
Most of these guys are training 365 days of the year. It’s not like
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