Is sumo wrestling dying out?

For any young athletes harbouring ambitions of being a sumo wrestler, there was some good news this week. The Japanese Sumo Association (JSA) has decided to relax its height and weight requirements for young recruits, opening up the sport to those previously barred for being too short or too slight. Now all the beleaguered association needs to do is find them and keep them. Given that recruitment is just one of a host of problems the sport is facing, that won’t be easy.

The rule change is in response to a precipitous drop in the number of applicants to train to be a rikishi (wrestler) and perhaps join the fabled ranks of legendary Yokozuna (grand champions) that adorn the walls of the Ryogoku sumo stadium in Tokyo, the sport’s version of Wembley. This spring saw just 34 such aspirants: in 1992 there were 160. This is the latest evidence of a sad decline of a once proud sport, now struggling to find stay relevant and find an audience amongst Japan’s more internationalised fans, for whom baseball, sakka (football, men’s and women’s), rugby, and even handball have all left Japan’s notional national sport far behind.