Re: SUMO: Itai & Yaocho

[Doreen Simmons <jz8d-smmn@asahi-net.or.jp>]

At 0:32 -0800 2/2/00, Masumi Abe wrote:
> Former Sekiwake Itai came back to Foreign Press Center in Tokyo and
> talked about yaocho in Ozumo the second time.

Foreign Correspondents' Club.  The FPC is a small Japanese foundation set up
to assist foreign media.

He insisted that his story
> is the truth. He said all his three matches against Takamiyama, current
> Azumazeki Oyakata, and all four matches against Kotonishiki.
>
> Itai's List of Yaocho Rikishi as of Kyushu-basho in 1999
> Akebono, Chiyotaikai, Kotonowaka, Kotonishiki, Hamanoshima, Kyokushuzan,
> Terao, Kaiho, Minatofuji, Asanowaka, Higonoumi, Shikishima, Aogiyama,
> Asanosho, Otsukasa, Tokitsuumi, Ohinode.

I don't recall hearing this list of names. He merely said he stood by
everything he had said last time. In fact, he became noticeably shy about
making any new accusations, especially when he began getting questions from
three or four people who showed that they were not depending on him for
information about sumo.

My own question was: "At the time of your retirement, I heard a lot of
people say that the Kyokai refused you permission to hold a public
hair-cutting ceremony. Is this true? And, if it is true, doesn't it indicate
that the Kyokai was well aware of your activities and took this step to
punish you and to warn others?" There was dead silence from the whole room.
Then he fudged: "I held my own haircutting ceremony.....". Not much later
Marty Kuehnert, a well-known sports writer,  asked several increasingly
tough questions, really pressing him about who knew what, and when (and
trying to link him with his stablemaster, Onaruto oyakata - Itai refused to
be drawn and insisted he had no knowledge of the matters in Onaruto's
accusations - as if nobody knew it was his own stablemaster in a very small
stable!);  the answers got more vague or evasive. The newbies asked some
more polite questions but it was clear to most people, I think, that this
press conference was not going as smoothly as the first. He started refusing
to name any more names, saying that you always forget a thrown bout. A
Japanese journalist even asked him if it was true that he owed a lot of
money to a present member of the Kyokai and was he now going public because
of debt problems: he replied indignantly that that was a really low kind of
question, and that he was concerned only to see honest sumo.

I'll be interested to see what reports come out this time. Sorry I'm too
tired to write more. Please bear in mind, too, that I am writing from memory
at the end of a very long and busy day.


Doreen in sumoland

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