Anyone into good combat sports and martial arts should check out this may's sumo basho. The top yokozuna, Hakuho, is out due to injury and that's left it pretty open. After 6 days only 2 men remain undefeated. Lone yokozuna Kakuryu and Georgian 'brick wall' Tochinoshin (who is having a great basho). There's a little guy (5' 9" and 'only' 99kg) called Enho who's doing really well too. Beating men that weigh double his body weight in some cases! Some of the tachi-ai's have been some of the most violent moments I've seen in combat sports in quite some time. Forearm smashes, palm strikes, slaps, throat grabs and headbutts that make you wince. How there aren't more K.O's and cuts is beyond me. And it's all free and nicely edited down to a swift 25 minutes on YouTube and with some good insight videos from an expat called Chris gould for Some background and context.
Enho is even smaller than Terao! For a small rikishi Terao was still 6' 1"! I like seeing clips off the wrestlers walking around town. When they square up to each other you lose track of how big they really are. When you see them next to average Japanese people you realise they are mountainous men.
