In my house, there are only two sports share interest in. Actually, other than for the Olympics, they're also probably the only sports either of us look for on TV -- ice skating and sumo. The Nihon Sumo Kyokai Official Grand Sumo Home Page is the web's focal point for the governing body of Japan's national sport.

The current basho (bi-monthly tournament) in Tokyo ends tonight with the two current Yokazunas (highest rank rikishi, or wrestlers) fighting it out for the September Emperor's Cup. The current big guy, Musashimaru, is American born, but like all sumo wrestlers, is now a citizen of Japan. His opponent tonight, Takanohana (my wife thinks he's cute, and I must admit, when he is relaxing in pre-bout concentration, his face does take on a serene Buddha-like quality), is of particular interest since this tournament is his first in about (or over?) a year. All eyes have been on him as he has come back from a leg injury.

Since I have to watch sumo tournaments on my cable system's Japanese channel, without English translation (summaries sometimes show up months later on ESPN), I've had to do my own thinking about the sport, aided by a couple books on the subject. These guys may look fat to the western eye used to a specific expectation of an athletic body, but very few of them jiggle. Yes, they're big (Moose is listed as about 520 pounds), but they are really quite solid and surprisingly quick and agile.

The sport is really about the most perfect, purest one going, with the simplest of rules. Other than logical prohibitions like those against hair-pulling, choking, and groin attacks, the rules pretty much come down to staying on your feet and in the ring while your opponent tries to either get you down or out. The size and shape of the rikishi are really part of the defensive strategy of low center of gravity for stability and mass to absorb an attack. There's such a range of holds, attacks, pushes, pulls, and throws that no two matches are really the same, despite typically lasting much less than a minute of action. It's also governed by centuries of tradition, courtesy, ritual, and respect. Uncommonly civilized compared to what goes on in baseball or soccer today, but something that should be expected in the world's oldest continually documented sport.