Foreign Born Rikishi?

[Akinomaki]

1 hour ago, Kaninoyama said:

I think his repeated episodes of unacceptable behavior had far more to do with his exit from sumo than his ethnicity. 

Not his ethnicity, but perhaps his violent character was influenced by the fact that his Filipino mother had to raise her kids alone in Japan.

On 28/09/2020 at 18:42, Akinomaki said:

What I didn't know about the twins is that their mother is Filipino, and she raised the brothers and their sister alone in Japan.

We also recently had a discussion about more half-Filipino in ozumo http://www.sumoforum.net/forums/topic/33461-low-ranked-rikishi-stories/?do=findComment&comment=424519

[pricklypomegranate]

On 22/11/2020 at 17:23, Seiyashi said:

The stories aren't limited to foreign-born rikishi either. Japanese rikishi do change the given name component of their full shikona name from time to time, for various reasons too (to honour deceased coaches, for a change in fortune, etc). But a lot also go through their career using their birth given name. 

For example, Enho's original name was Nakamura Yuya. He went by Enho Yuya for a while, but switched to Enho Akira to honour an ex-coach who died in a motorbike accident.

Shikoroyama-oyakata went as Terao Setsuo in his early career, Setsuo being essentially the male version of his mother's name, Setsuko. He switched to Genjiyama Rikisaburo (yes, the same Rikisaburo as in Kakuryu's shikona, not sure if there's a Izutsu tradition here) for one tournament but switched back to Terao Setsuo after that, and then switched to his final Terao Tsunefumi on the advice of a fortune teller.

More recently, Takagenji's given name, Satoshi, went from one kanji to two (but keeping the same reading). The added character was stated by Chiganoura-oyakata to come from "bushi", warrior, and he hoped that would lend Takagenji some strength as he rebooted his sekitori career. 

I don't think Akira was an ex-coach. He was an older student of the dojo whom Enho considered his first teacher as he taught Enho how to fight as a smaller kid and that it was possible to do sumo even with his physique. 

2 hours ago, Mightyduck said:

I'd be interested in the forum members thoughts as to whether that was a contributing factor to him being forced out. 

I think apart from the xenophobia comments which @Seiyashi have rightfully noted, it was because Takanofuji made a total farce of Takanohana's reform efforts. Takanofuji simply had to go before Takanohana himself went to salvage any sort of legitimacy. See, during the Harumafuji incident, Takanohana didn't do the regular thing of informing the Kyokai and letting them settle this internally but went to the police with the assault allegations. In any normal circumstance, informing the police would have been the right thing to do - a man assaulted another man. However, by blowing this up, Takanohana was essentially making the statement that he rejected the ills of the current sumo culture (i.e. hazing and mistreatment of lower-ranked wrestlers, lack of transparency by internally dealing with affairs) and demonstrated his wish to do so. However, when the Takanofuji scandal came to light, Takanohana was seen as hypocritical - he himself did not practice what he preached and could not even implement his own reforms to his heya, which oyakata have a lot of autonomy over. Who was he then to demand for reform in the whole sumo world? So yes, that coupled with the humiliation, as a dai-yokozuna, of having been demoted to all hell destroyed his credibility and made him feel impelled to resign before the Kyokai forced him. Die by his own blade rather than others', so to speak.  It could very well be that other oyakata were also sick of his political manoeuvring. Takanohana was very dedicated and wanted to achieve the highest of moral standards. To me, he did not just "want" them - he achieved them - I cannot name a single Yokozuna who has had higher hinkaku than he did. However, the flip side was that he was intolerant of what he (and many others) saw were bad traits like deceit and pigheadedness in the Kyokai. That made him very unpersonable and very difficult to work with. Of course, he had a few oyakata that supported his beliefs, which I do believe were good-intentioned, but ultimately they lost at the politics game. Terao is one example - he paid the price of moving to Takanohana ichimon - losing his brother Sakahoko's heya upon his death, the opportunity to continue his late brother's legacy and the valuable rikishi within it (Kakuryu). 

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by pricklypomegranate

[Seiyashi]

18 minutes ago, pricklypomegranate said:

I don't think Akira was an ex-coach. He was an older student of the dojo whom Enho considered his first teacher as he taught Enho how to fight as a smaller kid and that it was possible to do sumo even with his physique. 

+1 for the correction. Must have gotten his case mixed up with all the cases of recently deceased coaches this year.

18 minutes ago, pricklypomegranate said:

I think apart from the xenophobia comments which @Seiyashi have rightfully noted, it was because Takanofuji made a total farce of Takanohana's reform efforts.

Bringing it back to the original question of whether race has got anything to do with it, the answer is almost definitively no - Takanofuji screwed his own career up, repeatedly, and even if he were Japanese, it wouldn't have saved him.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Seiyashi

[Mightyduck]

Thank you all for the detailed and considered replies.

[Cal Martin]

Back in the late 60's and early 70's, the rules were a lot more easy, I don't think any one screwed up as much as I did, but they also knew that I didn't understand a single thing about Sumo or it's culture, but I am pretty sure it was because of me they started the "One per Beya"

Cal